It had been an easy decision. Brock had to be the one to place the strip of bark atop the snow-covered retaining wall and await further contact. Sam was simply too recognizable.
But she felt helpless, warm and protected inside the fifth floor hotel room while Brock braved the cold and the contact with what she was certain was a ruthless and brutal organized crime syndicate. She was also pretty certain the group had official state sanctioning. Russia had been the Wild West since the Berlin Wall had fallen a quarter century ago, and the oligarchs that ran things now were little more than thugs in expensive suits.
Her uneasiness grew as each second passed. She rechecked the rifle, idly fondling the safety. It had been easy to acquire the military sniper rifle on Moscow’s famous black market, and for that she was grateful. But not every conceivable problem was solvable with a slug from four hundred yards. And she wasn’t that confident in her marksmanship at this distance.
The crux of the issue was this: Had Bojan, the boorish Serb they’d met in Pescara, given them legitimate instructions to initiate contact? Or had he told them how to sign their own death warrants? She’d coerced contact instructions out of him, but there was no way to tell whether the procedures he’d specified, and that they’d followed religiously, would garner the introductions they sought. It was equally likely they’d earn Sam and Brock a painful death at the hands of a Russian gang.
Sam heard a chirp from the laptop computer perched on the table to her left. Someone had posted a new message on the Screw Big Brother site. Her heart leapt when she saw who: DynoDaniel469. Dan Gable. She quickly decoded the phone number embedded in the message, whipped out a new burner, and dialed as fast as her fingers would move. She held the phone to her ear, and returned her eye to the rifle’s scope. She was relieved to see Brock still sitting alone in the cold.
“Reader’s digest version, please,” Sam said as soon as Dan answered. “We’re eyeballs deep right now.”
“Right. I’ll get right to it. The concierge’s little brother got hired to hack by Slobodan Radosz’ group. Turns out, they whisked him away to the US. Their security wasn’t as tight as it needed to be, I think because these guys were hackers and not spies, and Big A was able to get a make on them.”
“Big A?” Sam asked, still surveying Brock’s position through the sniper rifle’s scope.
“Yeah, he’s been a godsend. Two Canadians, five Russians on the team. They made a bunch of phone calls from the same cell phones, before someone wised them up on how to stay under the radar. Guess where three of those calls went.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “You know I hate the guessing game.”
“Moscow,” Dan said.
“Jesus.”
“Lubyanka, in fact.”
Sonuvabitch. Lubyanka was the former headquarters of the KGB, and was widely rumored to be the hub of quasi-criminal, quasi-state-sanctioned heavies. “Got any names?”
“Yep,” Dan said. “And those initial seven people networked with a half dozen more before they tightened up their security procedures. If we had any manpower, we’d be able to roll up a huge foreign operation on US soil.”
Sam whistled. She had Dan spell the names for her, and she wrote them on a sheet of paper torn from the hotel notepad, being careful not to leave indentations on the nightstand that could be traced later.
“And there’s one name of particular interest,” Dan said. “The guy in Moscow. Make sure you’re sitting down.”
Dan told her the name.
“Oh, no,” Sam said, incredulous. “Are you sure?”
“Sure as the day is long.”
“You’re absolutely positive?”
“Yes, Sam.”
“Dan, this is extremely important. You have no doubt whatsoever it’s him?”
“Sam, Big A says it’s a hundred percent legit. No question about it.”
This changes everything.
Electric fear spread through her body. Her fingers felt numb. “I have to go,” she said.
She hung up and dialed Brock’s burner, panic rising.
It rang. “Answer, dammit!” she said aloud, phone pressed to her ear, eye peering at Brock through the scope.
Finally, she saw him unzip his coat and retrieve his cell phone.
“Get out! We’re in deep shit!” Sam shouted as soon as he answered.
“What’s going on?” Brock asked.
“Just stand up and walk away!” Sam heard the note of hysteria in her own voice.
Brock wasn’t moving. “Baby, please, get the hell out of there. Don’t stop for anything. Come straight back here. Hurry!”
She saw Brock stand and turn toward the hotel. He moved haltingly. His gunshot wound had tightened up in the cold Moscow air. “Hurry, baby,” Sam exhorted.
“This is as fast as I can walk right now,” he said, an edge to his voice. “Will you tell me what’s going on?”
“You just have to trust me right now.” She swept the rifle’s sights around Brock, checking for pursuers.
Motion caught her eye, at the far edge of the scope’s field of view. Oh, shit. Her focus settled on man dressed in black, moving with a purpose, thirty paces behind Brock, his eyes focused intently on Brock’s back.
Her heart thudded against her ribs. “Walk across the street, baby,” she said. “Now! Fast! You have a tail.”
Brock checked for crossing traffic and stepped out into Krimsky Val, urgency now evident in his gait.
His pursuer followed suit, closing the distance with each step.
“Faster, baby,” she said into the phone, panic in her voice. “He’s gaining!”
She settled her sights on the man behind Brock and moved her finger to the safety. I can’t believe this is happening, Sam thought, clicking off the safety. Breathe, she commanded herself, willing her skyrocketing heart rate to settle back down enough to give her a fighting chance at hitting her target.
Another pursuer came into her field of view, moving parallel to Krimsky Val on the opposite side of the street, on course to intercept Brock easily. Sonuvabitch! “Turn back!” she yelled into the phone. “Go back to the other side of the street!”
She heard Brock’s panting as he speed-walked with the phone pressed to his ear. “Shit, I see him,” Brock said, but Sam had dropped the phone to line up her shot. She saw Brock’s limp turn into a lop-sided gallop.
Sam re-centered her sights on the nearer of Brock’s pursuers. I can’t believe this is happening. She squeezed her index finger. The rifle slammed into her shoulder as the heavy slug left the silenced barrel. It traveled through the hotel room window in front of her, leaving just a half-inch hole in the glass.
Her target spun and fell on his face in the middle of Krimsky Val. He didn’t move.
Sam worked the rifle’s bolt, ejecting the spent cartridge and chambering another round, fighting the adrenaline that robbed her hands of the precision she desperately needed.
She moved the scope, searching for the second pursuer, forcing herself to breathe.
Her movement was erratic, and the scope passed twice over the dark-clad man now crossing from the opposite side of the street toward Brock. Relax, she coached herself, first finding the target with her naked eye, then moving the scope until she centered the death dot on his chest. She inhaled, held her breath, refined the rifle’s position, and added pressure to the trigger.
The rifle jerked. She vaguely registered the pain of its kick in her shoulder.
She saw sparks fly from the pavement behind the second pursuer. Sonuvabitch. She’d missed.
She worked the bolt a second time. The pursuer was just a few paces behind Brock, and gaining fast. Sam fought panic, fought the urgency that she knew was the enemy of accuracy.
Breathe.
It had to be now. The man would be on Brock in seconds. She wasn’t going to get another clean shot.
She lined up the sights, feeling her pulse pound in her temples, willing smoothness into her motions, doing her best to shut out the
fear for Brock’s safety that threatened to launch her into hysterics.
She squeezed.
Blood erupted from the pursuer’s back. The bullet’s momentum threw him onto the pavement. Sam was sure he was dead before he hit the street.
She pulled the phone to her ear. “Brock, baby, can you hear me?”
“Jesus, Sam, what’s going on?” he panted.
“Don’t come back to the room,” she said, her voice breaking with adrenaline and fear, her eyes scanning the area around Brock for any additional pursuers. “I’ll meet you in the lobby. We’ll exit through the service entrance in back. Hurry!”
She wiped the gun clean of her fingerprints, grabbed the list of names she’d written during her conversation with Dan, and ran from the hotel room.
18
“Oh, no.” Vaneesh got a sinking feeling in his chest. Had he made a mistake?
“What’s wrong?” Trojan asked.
“Oh, no,” Vaneesh repeated.
“Dude, let me look.” Trojan peered over his shoulder at the computer monitor. The virus and its embedded payload code were both reporting all kinds of activity, which should only happen if the virus had successfully found and diverted funds from the Bitcoin accounts involved in the giant theft operation.
But there was no money flowing into the new accounts.
“What’s going on?” Trojan asked.
“I’m stepping through the debugger again now,” Vaneesh said. He clicked frantically, watching each line of code as it executed, and watching the effect the code had on the Bitcoin accounts created to receive the recovered funds. “Disaster,” he said after a while. “I did not see this coming at all.”
Trojan’s virus and Vaneesh’s algorithm were working perfectly.
But someone had swiped the money out from underneath them.
19
Sabot waited in the wreck of an automobile he’d purchased five hours and two hundred miles ago. His nerves were frazzled. He eyeballed the titty bar with growing uneasiness.
He’d already paid half the fee to the local gang. It was enough to keep the average Honduran family financially comfortable for roughly seventeen thousand years. The other half of the fee was due upon delivery.
The appointed hour came and went. There was no sign of motion from inside the bar. There were no cars parked outside, at least not that he could see. Nobody came or went.
He wondered whether Fredericks had double-crossed him. If so, it would be an easy fix. Sabot would simply take every last zillionth of a Bitcoin from every one of Fredericks’ accounts.
And then he would hire someone to pull Fredericks’ limbs off.
Sabot handled the pistol he’d bought, surprised again at its heft. Despite his upbringing in a rough corner of Queens, he had no experience with firearms. He was pretty sure he’d lose any kind of a shootout, but he still felt marginally better with a gun in his hand. This kind of thing could be dicey.
He toyed with the idea of walking into the bar. The instructions were explicit — under no circumstances was he to get out of his car — but Sabot was beginning to come unraveled as the minutes ticked away.
Where the hell are they?
A van pulled up. It was white, beat up, with no windows. A classic kidnapper’s van. Jesus, Sabot breathed to himself, imagining the kinds of horrors that could go on in the back of a van like that. He didn’t know what he would do if anything had happened to those girls.
The back doors opened. The angle was wrong, so he couldn’t see inside the van. But he saw a foot touch the ground. A woman’s foot.
Then another.
The woman turned around, helping someone else out of the van. Sabot still couldn’t see anything but her feet.
Then he saw another pair of shoes emerge from the van, familiar shoes this time, and then it was hard for him to see anything at all, because his eyes filled with tears.
Hand in hand, Angie and Connie ran toward the car, and Sabot didn’t try to stop the sobs of relief and joy that erupted at the sight of them.
20
Sam was still shaking as she exited the subway station, Brock’s hand clasped firmly in her own. They’d found no additional muscle tailing them, but it was only a matter of time before more trouble appeared.
“This is insane,” Brock said. “We’re going to die here.”
Sam quickened her pace, walking toward the giant rectangular edifice that had inspired fear and loathing in the hearts of millions. “Not without a fight,” she said.
Brock pulled her back. “Sam, we can’t win this. I don’t want to die today.”
She saw real fear in his eyes, the same fear that had coursed through her veins and made a mess of her nervous system since Dan Gable had told her the name of the Russian at the top of the conspiracy she and Brock now stood poised to attack.
She caressed Brock’s cheek and looked into his eyes, her heart full of the love she felt for him, that she had always felt for him. He was the one. She felt sadness at the danger that faced them, and silently cursed the shitty odds. Her throat constricted and her eyes misted at the thought that the future they planned together might never happen.
“We have to do this,” she said, her voice choked. “We know who’s behind this. We know they will find us. We’re on their home turf. We’ll never make it out of the city if we don’t handle this now.”
He exhaled, weariness settling over his face, resignation in his eyes. He nodded slowly.
They turned, grasped each other’s hands, and walked into Moscow’s Lubyanka Prison.
“It is said that this is the tallest building in Russia,” the short, gruff man said, his feet propped on his desk, his impossibly blue eyes blazing with a disconcerting intensity. “From the basement, you can see all the way to Siberia.” He laughed a hearty Russian laugh.
Sam caught the humor, but it seemed far less than funny under the circumstances. She and Brock were keenly aware of the building’s history. Lubyanka had temporarily housed tens of thousands of prisoners, political and otherwise, during the Cold War years. Many of those prisoners were sent to the Siberian Gulags, where they were worked to death.
The luckier ones had their brains splattered onto the concrete wall in the courtyard.
It was hard for Brock and Sam not to imagine a similar fate for themselves.
“Mr. Alexandrov,” Sam began.
The old Cold Warrior cut her off with a wave of his hand. “You are a beautiful woman, and I would much prefer if you called me Fyodor.”
Sam shuddered. Fyodor fucking Alexandrov. She still couldn’t believe she was sitting across the table from one of the most feared men in the history of the clandestine services, in any nation. Alexandrov had ruled the KGB with an iron fist. Loyalty wasn’t necessary in Alexandrov’s organization, defectors joked, because agents never lasted long enough to betray the Motherland.
The hardness in the man’s eyes was frightening, and his attempt at charm had made her skin crawl.
She felt exceptionally vulnerable. She had but one card to play. There was no guarantee it would prove compelling. There was no guarantee that Alexandrov would even find it remotely interesting. He was still very much the puppet master, having opted to continue wielding real power after the Soviet Union crumbled, rather than pursuing a career as a phony politician, as so many of his counterparts had done.
As a result, Sam knew, he owned just about everyone. He was Russia’s equivalent of J. Edgar Hoover, minus the homosexuality, and even more devoid of any degree of moral compunction. He was a prime mover. People had long ago lost count of the deaths on Alexandrov’s ledger.
Sam cleared her throat. “I have a business proposition.”
Alexandrov’s blazing blue eyes turned to ice. “I am sure that you do.” He lit a filterless cigarette and took a healthy swallow from his tumbler of vodka. “You should know that I move slowly in business matters.”
Sam forced a smile. Here we go. “Your reputation says otherwise.” She reached into
her purse. “And I’m afraid this is a one-time offer,” she said, handing a crumpled piece of paper to Russia’s most powerful thug.
Alexandrov puffed his cigarette and studied the handwritten page. Then he looked back at Sam, his baleful eyes boring into her.
Her heart raced. She struggled to control her breathing. She feared he was going to shoot them on the spot.
After an interminable moment, Alexandrov sat back in his chair, and turned to look out the window. “You look like a beautiful woman,” he said after a puff on his cigarette. “But I think you’re hiding testicles in your pants.”
“I’ve been accused of that before,” Sam said.
“She’s one hundred percent woman,” Brock said with a protective look on his face.
Alexandrov regarded Brock with knowing admiration. “I am envious.”
The smile left Alexandrov’s face, and he sighed heavily. “And I am disappointed. It has become so difficult to find skilled personnel, and the world has changed in so many unexpected ways.”
Sam nodded. Had the danger passed? She didn’t know. “It’s not our game any longer, is it?”
Alexandrov snorted. “Our game? What would you know about it? You hadn’t yet opened your legs for your first man when I took over this building, guardian of everything that it stood for.” He had venom in his eyes.
She held his gaze, wondering what was churning inside his head. Was he contemplating the specifics of their demise? Pondering which wall to stand them against while he took aim? Wondering which of them to shoot first? Her heart pounded anew, and she hoped that the vein in her temple wasn’t throbbing with her pulse, betraying how truly afraid she was.
Sam inhaled. The situation demanded poise, confidence, aplomb. She felt none of those things. But she decided to fake it. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” she finally said, the beginnings of a smile curling the corners of her mouth. “I was pretty young when I started taking advantage of horny young men.”
Alexandrov studied her, his eyes intense, his jaw working.
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 190