Conviction (2009)

by Tom - Splinter Cell 05 Clancy

  Standing behind Fisher, Noboru stared at his OPSAT screen. "Nothing yet."

  "Wait for it." Grim had said it could take up to five minutes for the Ajax bots to fully disperse and infiltrate.

  "What if there's no power for them to gravitate to?" Hansen asked.

  "Just about every weapon or system on the inventory list is equipped with some form of EPROM--erasable programmable read-only memory--a low-power battery for housekeeping functions like date, time, and user settings. And if it doesn't have an EPROM, it's not one of the higher-end items. If we lose it, no disaster."

  Noboru said, "I've got action. Something's pinging in there. Another one . . . three more . . ." He looked up. "I'd say our first live-fire exercise is a success."

  They gave the area one last quick search, then headed for the door. From inside one of the blast funnels Gillespie called, "Check this out." They walked through the funnel to where she was standing. "Watch your step," she said. "It's gotta be extra venting for the engines."

  Fisher stepped forward and looked down. In the darkness they'd failed to see the gap between the funnels and the wall. It was hard to judge depth through the night-vision goggles, but he suspected the vent extended to the lowermost level.

  BACK at the ramp, Fisher pulled Noboru and Valentina aside and whispered, "The guards are yours. Knives if you can manage it; PSS pistols as backup."

  The both nodded.

  Again Fisher led the staggered column down the ramp. At the halfway point he called a halt, gestured for Hansen and Gillespie to take up overwatch positions, and then gave Noboru and Valentina the nod. Grozas slung and secured, they continued down the ramp. Fisher crept to the railing to watch their progress. He slung his own Groza and drew his PSS and extended the barrel through the railing, making sure he had a clear line of fire on each guard.

  As trained, Noboru and Valentina moved with exaggerated slowness, pausing between each heel-to-toe step until they were within ten feet of the guards. In unison, they stopped. Stepped forward. Stopped. When they were each within an arm's reach of their targets, they stood up, took a fluid step forward . . .

  Hands clamped over mouths and knives came up. The guards slumped down, dead. Noboru and Valentina dragged the bodies back up the ramp to where Fisher was crouched. He nodded to Hansen and Gillespie, who came forward and took the bodies the rest of the way up the ramp. They were back five minutes later.

  "Stashed them in medical," Hansen whispered to Fisher.

  "Apt," Fisher replied.

  THEY kept going, pausing only briefly at the next ramp's railing so Fisher could check the next level. He pointed to his eyes and his ears and shook his head, then gave the split-up signal. Over the next ten minutes Gillespie, Noboru, and Valentina checked in. Fisher ordered them back.

  Noboru crouched down and said, "Found another stack of Anvil cases. They're tagged."

  "How big?" Fisher asked.

  "About the size of the first one."

  "Two down. One to go." Fisher radioed Hansen: "Status report."

  "Stand by." Two minutes passed, then: "Coming back."

  When he rejoined the group, his face was red and flushed. "We've got company. Medical's been turned into a barracks. I counted a couple of dozen beds, all occupied."

  "The attendees?" Noboru guessed.

  Fisher nodded. "The hosts wouldn't be bunked with the guests."

  "Maybe he's not here yet," Valentina offered.

  "Maybe. We've got one more level to check. With any luck, we'll tag the last batch of cases and be back to Severobaikalsk for breakfast."

  Behind them, a familiar voice broke the silence: "Not gonna happen, dickheads."

  EVEN before Fisher turned around, the expressions on Valentina's and Gillespie's faces confirmed what his ears had told him: Ames.

  Valentina muttered, "He's got a grenade."

  "Armed?"

  "Can't tell."

  Fisher whispered, "Distance?"

  "Sixty feet," replied Gillespie. "He's right on your six o'clock."

  It was a long shot, especially off a quick heel turn, but not impossible. Still, having never used the Groza before, Fisher put his chances at only 70 percent.

  Ames said, "Don't even think it. Don't even turn around. I go down, so does the grenade. No way you'll cover the distance in time."

  Fisher noted that Ames's voice was still relatively soft. He wants something.

  Gillespie said, "He's moving. Coming ahead . . . six o'clock . . . seven . . . eight. Forty feet. He's at the ramp railing. Damn!"

  "What?"

  "I can hear you whispering," Ames replied. "Turn around and you'll see what."

  Slowly Fisher rotated on the ball of his foot, simultaneously raising the butt of the Groza closer to his shoulder. Hansen mirrored his movements. The entire group was now facing Ames. Gillespie and Valentina tried to crab-walk sideways to expand their fields of fire, but Ames stopped them. "Nope. Not another step."

  Ames stood at the railing with his grenade hand extended over the ramp. He took a few steps closer, but his arm never wavered. If Fisher took the shot now, he wouldn't miss, but there would be no stopping the grenade. The explosion would bring everyone inside the complex down onto them.

  "What do you want?" Fisher asked evenly.

  "Just wanted to let you know you were right about me. I am a survivor. You figured your little gasoline trick sent me over the edge, didn't you?"

  "How long did it take you to get out?" Fisher asked.

  "An hour. Good thing I'm skinny. Some of those tunnels were tight. While you were hiding from the helicopter, I was flagging it down. It took a little talking, but I finally convinced them of who I was."

  "And you waited for us."

  "Right."

  "Do they know we're here?"

  "No. I wanted to make sure I saw it all happen. I told him you were still in Irkutsk."

  "Him?" Fisher repeated. "Who?"

  Ames smiled. "You've met him. In fact, he told me you had him in your hands and you let him go."

  Fisher's mind flashed to the guards Noboru and Valentina had killed. The faces had looked familiar, but he'd dismissed it. He shouldn't have. He had seen them before.

  In Portinho da Arrabida, at Charles "Chucky Zee" Zahm's villa.

  39

  AMES, having read Fisher's expression, was nodding. "Yep. That's him."

  Hansen said, "Who?"

  "Zahm," Fisher replied.

  "You're kidding me."

  Fisher shook his head.

  It made a certain sense. Though he'd had no overt clues at the time, Fisher could now see his psychological assessment of Zahm made him an obvious candidate for the man behind the curtain. A born envelope pusher, he joins the SAS but finds the adrenaline rush of covert soldiering only temporarily satisfies his addiction, so he leaves and decides, on a whim, to become a bestselling novelist, but this, too, isn't enough. He rounds up some former comrades and goes into the business of high-end thievery only to find himself still restless, so he raises the bar. He breaks into a secret Chinese laboratory, steals five tons of weaponry, and invites the world's most dangerous terrorists to an auction at an abandoned Soviet complex in the middle of Siberia.

  To the average person, insanity. To Zahm, just another day.

  What Fisher didn't know, and might never know, was Zahm's purpose at the Korfovka rendezvous with Zhao and Murdoch. He'd probably been laying the groundwork for the Laboratory 738 heist and the auction.

  "Where is he?" Fisher now asked.

  "Around."

  "You can still do the right thing," Hansen said.

  "I could," Ames conceded.

  He lifted his opposite hand in a fateful gesture. Even as Fisher's eyes instinctively flicked to the hand, he thought, Distraction.

  "But I won't," Ames finished.

  He dropped the grenade, turned, and sprinted up the ramp.

  40

  FISHER jerked the Groza to his shoulder and focused the crosshairs between
Ames's shoulder blades, but he was gone an instant later, around the curve of the ramp.

  "Down," Fisher commanded, and dropped flat. The others followed suit. Two seconds passed and then the crump of the grenade's explosion echoed up the ramp.

  Hansen asked, "Up or down?"

  "Down. We've gotta tag the last of the cases."

  "Gonna be trapped."

  "Bad luck for us," Fisher shot back. He turned to Noboru. "You have the ARWEN?"

  "Yeah."

  Fisher pointed down the corridor to the medical zone. "In about ten seconds they're going to come charging. Don't wait until you see them. First sign of footsteps, you put two gas canisters downrange. Got it?"

  "Yep."

  To Valentina and Hansen, Fisher said, "You're with Noboru. Anybody comes through his gas cloud, put 'em down. They'll back off to regroup. When they do, leapfrog down the ramp and meet up with us. We'll try to hold the ramp intersection. You three split up and check the zones for the rest of the arsenal. Questions?"

  There was none.

  "Good luck."

  You're with me," Fisher told Gillespie. They got up and sprinted to the down ramp. "Everything's a target," he shouted. "If it's alive, kill it. Two rounds, center mass, then move on."

  "Got it."

  THEY were halfway down the ramp when gunfire from below peppered the walls above their heads. They veered right, away from the railing, and kept going. Behind him Fisher heard a plastic tink tink tink and turned to see a fragmentation grenade rolling down the ramp toward them.

  "Down!"

  He spun on his heel, scooped the grenade with his free hand, and shovel tossed it over the railing.

  "Grenade!" a British-accented voice called, followed by the explosion.

  From the level above came the double fwump of Noboru firing the ARWEN. Voices shouted, then the overlapping chatter of Valentina and Hansen firing their Grozas.

  Fisher called to Gillespie, "Keep moving," then plucked a flashbang off his harness and pulled the pin. She did the same. They rounded the corner, tossed the grenades, dropped to their knees until they heard the explosion, then got up and moved into the blinding light, guns up and tracking for targets. He kept Gillespie in the corner of his eye, instinctively closing or opening the distance between them to keep an overlapping field of fire.

  "Clear," Fisher called.

  "Clear," she replied.

  Fisher heard Hansen's voice in his headset. "We're coming down. Four tangos down."

  "Roger," Fisher replied

  In unison, he and Gillespie turned right, checked the medical corridor for targets, then kept moving, following the curve of the railing. Fisher slowed their pace, taking slow, measured steps, controlling his breathing. He checked Gillespie; she was doing the same. They reached the head of the weapons zone corridor, paused, and saw nothing moving. Fisher turned to check their right flank and saw a figure charging at them from medical.

  "Target!" he said, and squeezed off two rounds. The figure went down. "Moving." Groza still at his shoulder, he paced forward. Gillespie followed, turning in a half circle as she covered their flanks and rear. Fisher reached the corner at the corridor, paused, peeked around. A muzzle flashed in the darkness.

  "Fire at the bottom of the ramp," Fisher advised Hansen.

  "Roger. Coming down now."

  Fisher saw the three of them appear down the ramp. He gave them a nod, then stuck the Groza around the corner and fired two shots down the corridor. Hansen, Noboru, and Valentina rushed forward and pressed against the opposite wall. Noboru dropped to one knee and aimed the ARWEN back up the ramp.

  "How many?" Hansen asked Fisher.

  "One that we know of."

  "We'll take care of him."

  Fisher nodded, and he and Gillespie backed away and kept circling around the ramp until they reached ballistics.

  "Target!" Gillespie called. Fisher turned with her. They fired together. The figure went down.

  "Are these Zahm's?" she asked.

  Fisher nodded. "Unless he expanded his crew, he's only got three left."

  From medical rose a double pop from a Groza. Valentina called over her radio, "Target down."

  Fisher replied, "Hansen, you and Valentina clear medical."

  "Roger."

  "Noboru, can you hold the ramp?"

  "Bet your ass."

  From down the corridor to ballistics they heard a shout. Fisher stopped and crouched down. Gillespie did the same. "That's Ames," she said.

  "You're sure?"

  "Yeah."

  Fisher radioed to Hansen, "Moving to ballistics."

  H E and Gillespie headed out. A hundred yards down the corridor they heard Ames's voice again: "Shouldn't have left it sitting here alone, Chucky."

  "Ah, bloody hell, you little weasel! Come down here so I can put a bullet in your brain."

  "Can't do that, Chucky--"

  "Don't call me Chucky!"

  Fisher and Gillespie kept going until they were within sight of the main door. Pressed against the near wall, with Gillespie behind him, Fisher slid ahead until he could see inside. Like the ballistics zones above, this one was wide open, measuring several football fields in length, and filled with engine test stands and workbenches.

  Fisher peeked through the door, then pulled back and said to Gillespie, "Zahm's at the far end of the room with his last two men. They're standing at the mouth of the middle blast funnel. Right inside the door there's a double row of workbenches running down the right hand wall. Keep your eyes sharp for Ames. He's hiding somewhere. Ready?"

  She nodded.

  Fisher eased back to the door, lifted the Groza, and braced the barrel against the jamb. He nodded. Hunched over, Gillespie stepped around him and crept to the nearest bench. She took up a covering position, and he trotted forward to join her.

  Zahm yelled, "Give it up, Ames. You ain't going to get 'em open."

  "Don't want to!" Ames shouted back.

  Gillespie whispered, "What's he doing?"

  Fisher shook his head. "Don't know."

  Hansen said over the headset, "Medical clear." "Move on to weapons."

  "Roger."

  "Noboru?"

  "All okay. I can hear them moving around up there but no action. I think they're trying to call the elevator. Should I--"

  "No, leave them. We've got Zahm and we've got the arsenal. Not exactly the original plan, but it'll do. Hansen, once you're done clearing weapons and electronics, backtrack to Noboru and hold. As soon as we wrap up Zahm, we'll be there."

  "Roger. And Ames?"

  "He's dumb enough to have stayed. We'll take him, too."

  LEAPFROGGING, Fisher and Gillespie made their way down the row of benches until they were within a hundred yards of Zahm and his two men. Fisher gestured for Gillespie to take the man on the left. She nodded and set up for the shot. Fisher fired first. His target went down. Zahm spun that way, then heard the second man collapse and turned back.

  "Hi, Chuck," Fisher called.

  Zahm turned around. He was holding a 9mm semiautomatic in his right hand.

  "Lose it," Fisher ordered.

  Zahm dropped the gun. "Fisher!" he called back with a wide grin.

  "You just couldn't sit still, could you?" Fisher replied. "Couldn't have stayed in Portugal, enjoyed your villa and your mojitos and your boat."

  "Boring. Too damned boring."

  "Then you're going to hate prison," Fisher called.

  "You can put me in, but you can't keep me there."

  From somewhere in the space, Ames yelled, "You're both wrong!"

  Fisher looked at Gillespie. "He's not in here."

  "What?"

  "The echo's wrong. He's above us--ballistics, second level. He's yelling down the exhaust shaft."

  And then Fisher realized what was happening. He keyed the radio, "Ben, say position."

  "Electronics. Just finishing."

  "Move now, back to the ramp. You, Valentina, and Noboru get topside as fast as
you can."

  "What's going on?"

  "Do it. Blast your way through whoever's up there, but don't slow down."

  "Roger."

  Gillespie asked Fisher, "What's--"

  Ames shouted again: "Okay, Chucky, here it comes...."

  Fisher told her, "We're leaving. Move!"

  From the far end of the space they heard a crash. They turned back to see an Anvil case bounce off the middle exhaust funnel and slam into the wall behind it.

  Zahm spun around and stared at the case. "Son of a bitch! Ames, I'm gonna--"

  A second case fell, this one the size of a closet. It struck the floor upside down and split open. Fisher saw a couple of dozen cylindrical objects skitter across the floor. Another case fell, then another, and then they were raining down the exhaust vent until the mound was taller than the funnels. Over the din, Zahm was shouting unintelligible curses. He stopped suddenly and stared at the debris.

  Ames called, "Missed one. Here it comes."

  A brick-sized white object dropped down the vent and disappeared into the pile.

  "Ah, bloody hell!" Zahm called.

  Gillespie said, "What?"

  "Semtex," Fisher replied. "Run."

  THEY were sixty feet from the door when the charge went off. A split second later a grenade detonated, then another, then rose a thunderous whoop.

  Fisher felt a wave slam into his back. The air was sucked from his lungs. He tumbled end over end and slammed into a wall. He rolled over and looked around.

  "Kimberly!"

  He heard a groan near the door. She lay on her back, with her torso in the corridor and her legs lying across the threshold. Fisher pushed himself to his knees and stumbled toward her. He looked left. The back wall of the space was gone, along with the concrete blast funnels. Water gushed through the hole and surged across the floor toward them. Fisher reached Gillespie, grabbed her by the collar, and ran, dragging her out the door and down the corridor.

  Hansen was on the radio. "What the hell was that?"

  "Level four is blasted open," Fisher replied. "The lake's coming in. Where are you?"