Finally, Flynn had called Osborne, letting him know that he was all right. His mission was a failure—sort of. He didn’t get the information he came for, but the Chinese spy and his associates were all murdered. The buyer only performed a cursory search of the building, which gave Flynn the break he needed to remain hidden. He eventually worked himself free and escaped to view the carnage.
Osborne knew it was far too early to give up on Flynn now, but this situation was different. He could spend time handwringing over the possible death of a mission agent—and it was justified, yet part of the job. Presiding over a mission that could determine the fate of millions and set into motion a world war was beyond Osborne’s scope of familiarity. This new territory set him on edge. An acting president hell-bent on blowing up half of Russia. An extremist group determined to start a world war. And a former operative on his first mission in years to keep it all from happening. It was a recipe for angst on the highest level.
Osborne’s phone rang. It was Sandford.
“Where are we at? I’ve got missiles being loaded as we speak.”
“Nothing yet, sir. But we’ve still got ninety more minutes. Please be patient.” Osborne was telling Sandford that as much as he was telling himself.
“We’ve been far too patient with these people. It’s time to take action.”
“Just hold off, please, sir.”
“Ninety minutes—then we’re firing the missiles.”
Sandford hung up.
Osborne stared at the clock. He only had eighty-nine minutes now.
CHAPTER 58
FLYNN LAID DOWN his Glock 26 and stared at the familiar figure aiming a gun at him down the dimly lit hallway. Less than forty-eight hours ago, the two men fought in Flynn’s home—and Flynn let him live. Now they stood on Ivan’s turf, half a world away. Flynn determined he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
“ Существует кто-то, кто хочет тебя видеть ,” Ivan said in Russian.
Someone wants to see me. This should be interesting. Flynn moved slowly toward Ivan, hands raised in a surrendered position. By the time Flynn reached Ivan, two guards joined them and quickly patted down Flynn. Satisfied that he was weaponless, they ushered him down a long dark hallway and through a bevy of rooms. Unfinished concrete floors and cinder block walls formed the structure for the facility’s maze-like layout. Flynn tried to ascertain where he was in the building based on the blueprints the CIA gave him. The better bearings he possessed, the better chance he could escape alive—if ever given the chance.
What the building lacked in aesthetics, it made up for with its state-of-the-art security system. Each room required a retinal scan for entry as well as an alternating code displayed on a digital fob carried by each guard. Flynn noticed a digital clock on the wall. The bright red numbers reminded him he had barely an hour to secure the facility and call Osborne. Ushered deeper into the recesses of the building in silence, Flynn wondered if perhaps the blueprints were faulty or from an early phase of construction.
After nearly five minutes, they arrived at their destination: the control room for the facility’s missile silo.
Fluorescent lights flickered and hummed in one vacant corner of the room. At the far end of the room, a team of four men pushed glowing buttons and flicked switches, calling out commands in Russian. Flynn watched as the men wheeled across the stark white floor and ran through a checklist to apparently prepare a missile launch. He understood from their chatter that a launch was scheduled to occur in sixty minutes.
“ Вот он, ” Ivan announced as they entered the room.
Flynn froze and stared as the man sitting in the largest chair spun around. Wearing a long dark trench coat, the man stood up and walked toward Flynn. His dark skin bunched in wrinkles around his forehead and extended onto his baldhead. Using a black wooden cane, the man shuffled toward Flynn. His small brown eyes directed a piercing stare at his visitor. Once he arrived within three feet of Flynn, he stopped.
“Mr. Flynn,” the man said, speaking in a thick Russian accent. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you here on our terms. For your sake, I wish it could have been under different conditions, for this will not end well for you. You had your chance to ensure that it did, but you continued to meddle where you didn’t belong.”
Flynn furrowed his brow and stared at the man, wondering if he was supposed to know him.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Flynn? Do you not recognize me? Perhaps you might know who I was if I still had all my hair. But I lost that a long time ago—along with all my faith in humanity.”
“The red-haired negro,” Flynn muttered to himself. But it was loud enough that the man heard him.
“That’s probably my favorite alias, though a more formal introduction is required in this instance. My name is Marcos Buscape.”
Flynn stared, unaware that the name should mean anything. It certainly wasn’t a name he ever heard while working at the agency.
The man continued.
“I understand if you’ve never heard of me—most people haven’t. And quite frankly, I prefer to keep it that way. The less people of your ilk know about me, the better. I don’t even like it when our committed organization here gets mentioned in the press. We like to work behind the scenes. Our work isn’t about glory—it’s about an end game that will better this world, far more than I can say for your American imperialism.”
Flynn wanted to lash out at the man, dispute his claims. But he chose not to. The more his enemy talked, the more he would know how to defeat him.
“But you ruined all that for us when you went on television and alerted the world to our presence. The Kuklovod is a long-standing order that seeks to influence people and world events, not grandstand. Yet we can’t do anything now without people seeing us as an evil group. If your President Bush were still blathering on about terrorism, we’d be part of his axis of evil, I’m sure.”
Flynn, who bit his tongue while scanning the room, couldn’t resist the urge to stay silent any longer. He had a few questions of his own and needed to do some probing.
“So, now you’re just going to start a world war?” Flynn asked.
“Oh, we aren’t starting anything—we’re merely ensuring that it happens. For far too long, Russia and the United States have played nice, acting like two comrades instead of mortal enemies. Both countries have lacked the leadership with the fortitude to attack the other. And we didn’t mind since we have no interest in seeing your failed imperialistic ideas spread here and beyond. But as your weak-kneed government has dwindled its military, Russia has been advancing its technology and strengthening its army in ways you never dreamed possible. Now with the upper hand, Russia only needs an excuse to strike. Unlike you Americans, Russia would never strike first in an unprovoked act. But get the right American leader in power—and everything goes boom!”
Buscape stamped his cane on the floor for emphasis. He then leaked a wry smile, apparently proud of the plan he conceived to stoke the embers of war.
Seeking a deeper grasp of his enemy, Flynn went fishing with his next statement.
“You certainly don’t look like a Russian,” Flynn said.
Buscape glared at Flynn a moment before speaking.
“That is the problem with you Americans—it’s always about appearances. How one looks determines a person’s value. Are they beautiful? Successful? Rich? Powerful? And look where it’s gotten you—a depraved country lacking in discipline, leadership and compassion. The land of opportunity is now a cesspool of narcissism. If you think I’m doing this because I have ties to Russia, you are wrong. My passion is to see the world consumed by true communism—where we share what we have, despising those who clamor over others to get their way. It’s about seeing a collective good emerge from a world currently devoid of compassion.”
“So you kill millions of innocent people to achieve this brand of communism, forcing them into this ideal?”
Buscape looked at the f
loor, dragging his cane around in circles as he thought. He finally looked up at Flynn.
“Yes,” he said, nodding his head. “If I must, I will. Their lives are meaningless now anyway. Better that they die sooner than later to save them from a vacant existence. The result will be a better world—the kind of world my father dreamed of.”
“Your father?”
“Yes, my father—a real father. Father Buscape. You’ve likely never heard of him as he toiled away in Luanda, Angola, wasting away in the final years of his life without ever seeing his dream realized. He offered me up as a sacrifice to Ilya Makarova, the founder of the Kuklovod. In exchange for my service to Ilya, my father would receive all the funding he needed to help establish a Communist party in Angola. My father may have failed to see true communism spread like he hoped, but I won’t. Today will mark the dawn of a new day in the earth’s history.”
Flynn grew tired of the old man spouting his misguided idealism. Despite all of the awful things Flynn had to do in the name of protecting the freedom of the American people, he knew people don’t change by force. Strangely enough, he shared some of Buscape’s sentiments, but starting a war was no way to accomplish it—nor would it ever accomplish anything in the end other than more war. He wasn’t about to let the codger take millions of innocent lives.
With two guards watching Flynn’s every twitch, he needed a distraction. Flynn bent over and started coughing, catching the guards by surprise as they knelt down next to him to see what was wrong. Flynn then wrapped his leg around the neck of the guard on his left, forcing him to drop his assault weapon. At the same time, he kicked the knee of the guard on his right, sending him to the floor. Flynn snatched the weapon off the floor and jammed it up against Buscape’s neck, careful not to cut him.
Ivan, who had holstered his weapon, redrew but not soon enough. A standoff began.
“Everybody drop your weapons … now!” Flynn directed as he maneuvered behind Buscape to utilize him as a shield. “The rest of you, up against the wall!”
The three men remaining at the control panel joined Ivan and the two guards, standing with their backs to the wall.
Ivan refused to budge.
“I said drop your weapons!” Flynn yelled again.
Ivan held fast.
Then Buscape spoke. “It’s OK, son. You can put down your weapon. He’s not going to harm you—or me either.”
Flynn waited until Ivan dropped his gun before responding.
“Listen, Buscape. I already made that mistake once. I’m not leaving Ivan alive this time.”
Buscape then began chuckling to himself, nearly uncontrollably.
“You Americans never cease to amaze me with you brash arrogance.”
Flynn pressed the tip of the rifle deeper into Buscape’s neck.
“ Принеси мне девушки !” Buscape yelled.
A side door swung open and Lexie marched out, gagged with her hands tied behind her back. Even more surprising was the person holding a gun to Lexie’s head.
It was Sydney Sandford.
CHAPTER 59
GERALD SANDFORD READ the text message on his phone. He brushed back a tear that streaked down his face. Seeing Sydney bound enraged him. Her face appeared bruised, her body beaten. If Sandford could stand in front of her kidnappers at the moment, he was certain he would beat them to death.
But he couldn’t. All he could do was meet the demands of her captors. So what if it started a war? What kind of father wouldn’t move heaven and earth for his daughter?
Thirty minutes was all he had left to comply with their demands. Still no word from Osborne.
Seconds dripped by like hours, each one stirring up an ocean of emotions within him. He remembered saying good-bye to Sydney as she embarked on her Peace Corps mission to Russia. No matter how much he tried to protect her, Sandford never could sway her to follow in his footsteps. She wanted to change the world and make a difference in the lives of others. He pleaded with her to pursue that noble mission through politics and embrace the path he blazed for her. And Sydney almost went for it.
When she was nineteen, Sydney took off a year from school to help with her father’s U.S. Senate re-election campaign. The brutal spring primary set Sandford up for a bare-knuckle brawl in the November general election. Heading into the final two weeks before the election, Sandford trailed by eight points in the polls. The poor polling numbers prompted some major donors to decline to contribute further when Sandford needed it most. He even watched several key campaign staff members exit early, fearing the worst.
But if voters hadn’t voted, Sandford assumed there was always ample time to change their minds.
Three days before the election, a scandal broke: Pictures emerged of Jim Dyer in suggestive situations with a prostitute. Making the scandal worse was Dyer’s platform plank of family values. His wife and three children stood by him as he railed against “dirty politics,” denying the incident ever occurred.
The last polling numbers the day before the election showed a swing of fifteen points, giving Sandford an advantage of seven percentage points. Sandford won by twenty percent.
At the celebration party, Sydney began talking with one of her father’s staff members, whose loose lips let out the campaign’s secret: the Dyer incident was set up. Sandford’s staff hired a prostitute to seduce Dyer months earlier but failed. So, this time they left nothing to chance, drugging Dyer and staging the photos. Nothing even happened. But the photos suggested otherwise.
Sydney took the information to her father, who denied any knowledge of it. She begged him to apologize and tell the truth, but he refused. “It’s just politics,” he told her. “It was for the good of the people anyway. He only cares about power, not about helping the people.”
That was when Sandford started to lose his daughter—and when she lost faith in using politics as a way to transform the world. A few years later, she was heading off to Russia to help people there. Sandford never dreamed that would be the last time he saw her again. Yet after thinking she was dead for years, he would do anything to touch her again, to hold his little girl and say he was sorry for all that he’d done. He’d be a different man, a better father.
But none of it would happen until he launched a full-scale missile attack on Russia.
CHAPTER 60
FLYNN STARED AT LEXIE as she struggled under Sydney’s tight grip. Reading the situation wasn’t easy. Lexie faced the men Flynn had ordered to line up against the wall. If she tried to signal anything, they just might tip off Sydney. It was up to Flynn to send her a message that would help him squash the sudden quagmire.
“Sydney—so nice of you to join us,” Buscape said, turning to face her as Flynn continued to press the tip of his barrel into the old man’s neck. “I think this is what we call a stand off.”
Flynn tried to hide his emotions. He considered the possibility of acting like he didn’t care about Lexie. And on some level, he didn’t. It was her arrogance that led to this predicament. Yet he needed her. This mission would fail if he didn’t have some help. Despite his urge to blow her off, he couldn’t let Sydney—or anyone else from the Kuklovod—kill Lexie. At this point, he didn’t even care if she made off with the missiles; he just wanted to stop a war from igniting.
Glancing behind him, Flynn noticed Ivan and the operators hadn’t moved. Buscape hardly struggled as he was too weak to overpower Flynn and seemed keenly aware of that fact. But in front of Flynn stood his biggest challenge: Sydney holding Lexie hostage.
Running out of time, Flynn needed to devise a plan quickly. Maybe I can reason with her?
“Sydney, I know your father is worried sick about you,” Flynn began. “Why don’t you put the gun down so you can go home and prevent the loss of innocent life?”
Sydney laughed. “You think that CIA voodoo is going to work on me? I already know what’s in your playbook and I’ve got a plan for everything. So, if you want to try some of your pop psychology on me, be my gu
est. But if you knew me well enough, you’d know that trying to use my father to connect with me is a big mistake.”
Flynn knew it was a mistake the second he started speaking aloud. But it bought him more time to consider a way out.
“Sydney, what happened to you?” Flynn asked. “You were so idealistic and driven—now you seem jaded, angry … distant.”
“Do you want me to lay on a couch or something? Let me tell you all my deepest desires? Is this how you think this is going to go?” Sydney asked. Her biting sarcasm contradicted the pleasant demeanor that Osborne said she had. Apparently, charm had since escaped her command.
With the Kuklovod tattoo emblazoned on the corner of her neck, Sydney exhibited the opposite of every trait Osborne had attributed to her.
Though Sydney was beautiful, Flynn had to look hard to see it. The high cheekbones and curvaceous figure remained mostly hidden by a tough exterior Sydney worked tirelessly to promote. The idealistic girl that once inhabited her body wasn’t gone and buried yet. Sydney exuded plenty of idealism, but it was muddied by her newfound communist philosophy.
Flynn thought hard. He needed a signal for Lexie.
“No, Sydney, that’s not how this is going to go,” Flynn said. “I thought it might go something like it went in Cameroon.”
Before Sydney could respond to Flynn’s cryptic answer, Lexie swung into action. She spun hard to her left, exposing Sydney’s back to Flynn. He released Buscape for a moment, only to fire off a short burst toward Sydney, striking her in the left shoulder. It was enough to incapacitate her for a few minutes and give Lexie the chance to help him gain the upper hand.
Lexie snatched a knife off Sydney, and she was able to cut herself free. After that, she grabbed Sydney’s gun. Meanwhile, Sydney screamed out in agony as she writhed around on the floor now coated in her blood.
“Let’s tie them up,” Flynn said.
“Go for it,” Lexie answered, tossing him a handful of rope and duct tape she found laying on a desk at the far end of the room. “I’ll give you some cover.”
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