“No problem here,” Michael said. The agility and speed of what felt like a 1970s Jeep clone were impressive. “We’re more careful with our own cars in traffic.”
The driver nodded in acknowledgment. “If they discarded Detective Ramirez’s smartphone, how are you able to track her?”
Michael smiled and thought of his sister. “That extra little blue chromosome,” he said. “Jessica is going to slap me silly when I tell her that the necklace I gave her has a GPS beacon embedded in it.”
The FBI agent closed his eyes and imagined the loving smile and the bear hugs he got whenever his sister saw him walk in the door.
You truly are a star, Juliette.
Jessica’s icon veered to the right.
“Looks like they turned right up ahead,” Michael said. “Do you think the other guys still have a visual?”
A Ural Typhoon seemed to appear out of nowhere. The twenty-four-ton armored vehicle sideswiped the embassy car in front of Michael, pressing it to the left and into oncoming traffic. The Chevrolet SUV tried to correct to the right, but it was no match for the battle-hardened military vehicle.
Oncoming cars careened out of the way as the Typhoon continued to press the SUV toward the guardrail that separated the road from the Moscow River. Michael could see a flash at one of the truck’s windows. The rear passenger glass on the Chevy shattered, followed almost instantaneously by a thunderous explosion.
The SUV crashed head-on into an oncoming vehicle, becoming an airborne fireball that only extinguished when it splashed into the still-icy water.
69
Airborne—North of Moscow
200 kilometers to go and on schedule.
Alexandra Clark checked the Antonov’s progress on the screen of her GPS. She ran through the checklist in her head for the hundredth time.
Fifty kilometers before landing, the aircraft would be at the altitude for the jump. The jump master would emerge from the flight deck and open the long rear ramp. The six of them would debark at roughly eight thousand feet above ground level, higher than the twelve hundred fifty feet required to pass paratrooper jump training but low enough not to require oxygen during descent.
There would be a moment of free-fall before the chutes would automatically deploy.
If all went according to plan, they would land in a field thirty kilometers from the outskirts of Moscow. The embassy would have transportation waiting nearby.
Ali studied the four team members Gerhardt had hand-picked for the mission himself.
Check that, the director selected only three. A fourth fell ill hours before departure, and the military hastily provided a replacement.
Ali didn’t like that. Cops hated strangers. He didn’t know the team’s culture and chemistry. But they said he was one of the best. The man was a Russian refugee named Garin, who spoke the language flawlessly and had the same elite skills as his three counterparts.
She studied him in the dim glow of the Antonov’s cabin night-lighting. Six feet tall. One hundred ninety-five pounds. All muscle, sinew and bone. Prime beef.
Garin, Ali thought. Her grasp of Russian was minimal. But she knew that Garin translated to the word guardian. But whose guardian was this man?
Garin supposedly knew the area well enough to fill the role of the team geographer. It would be his job to take them directly to The Captain without being detected.
She hoped Garin was up to it.
The public address system in the cargo bay crackled to life. “Five minutes to drop zone.”
All six stood at once. Four men who had been sleeping as peacefully as if it were nap time on a Sunday afternoon were fully alert. They turned in pairs to inspect one another’s gear.
Ali did the same with Lee. When it was her partner’s turn to check Ali out, it impressed her how quickly her UK counterpart had memorized the drill.
Ali resisted the urge to look at the face of her lover. This was a mission that required attention to detail. Ali turned hers to the pros across the cabin. She wanted to make sure she didn’t forget something.
As Garin’s jump partner tilted his head upward to aid in the inspection, Ali saw the move.
Garin briskly drew his handgun. Placing it under his partner’s chin, he pulled the trigger.
Even amid the noise of an uninsulated cabin, the blast stunned Ali. Garin’s victim crumpled to the floor, giving him a clear shot at the two other operatives.
He knew the exact locations of exposure where bullet-proof vests met helmets. Garin positioned a pair of slugs in the center of the two other men’s necks, shattering the C3 vertebra, killing them almost instantly.
Then, the Russian calmly swung his weapon toward the two women.
By now, both Lee and Ali had deduced the truth. Someone had compromised their mission.
The pair dropped to the deck, rolling away from one another, weapons blazing in Garin’s direction.
There was only so much detail a human mind can commit to memory in a short period. The soft spots in Garin’s Kevlar were not part of that detail.
Tiny flashes reflected in the darkness as the rounds bounced off the traitor’s protective vest.
The flight deck door opened, and the jumpmaster emerged. Unprotected, Garin killed him with a single shot.
Then he turned his attention to Ali, dropping a spent clip and reloading his weapon in one smooth movement.
As if in response to her thoughts, Garin aimed a single round of covering fire in Lee’s direction. The detective inspector ducked as the shot flew over her head.
Garin had slowly shifted his position to the back of the aircraft. He leveled a sidekick to the heavy-duty switch that activated the jump ramp, continuing to fire in Ali’s direction.
Garin ran toward its edge even before the ramp fully deployed into the buffeting three hundred kilometers slipstream.
Ali could see something in his left hand. His thumb pressed its center, and a tiny orange LED flashed. With the acumen of a major league pitcher, he rocketed the device toward the open door to the flight deck and jumped into the night.
The wind noise was deafening, but there was no need for verbal communication. Ali and Lee sprinted for the ramp, launching their bodies clear of the Antonov seconds before Garin’s device detonated.
The aircraft burst into a fiery comet. A trail of red and orange flame consumed the Antonov’s flight deck before igniting the kerosine in the wing fuel tanks. The fireball lit up the sky like the midday sun.
Ali imagined the Moscow flight controllers were wondering why the blip on their screens suddenly disappeared. That alone would bring them unwelcome company.
Liyanna Evans looked at the altimeter on her right wrist. Her chute would deploy automatically at twelve hundred fifty feet AGL.
The night was clear, and the wind cut through her layers of insulation, chilling her to the bone. She strained to pick out the small LED lights that illuminated the top of Ali’s and Garin’s helmets. The flashing red dots seemed to converge.
Alexandra Clark was furious. Somehow The Captain had inserted a man into the team. His job was to ensure that Ali was killed, another calculated psychological blow to Jessica.
You’re pissing me off, tovarishch.
Ali determined that this mission would be Garin’s last.
Pressing her arms against her sides, she tilted her body toward the blinking projectile that seemed to get closer with every passing second. Garin was descending spread eagle, preparing for his chute to open.
Her target was slowing. Ali was accelerating.
She found the plunger that disengaged the auto-deploy sequence and hit it. Above the hurricane-force winds, she could hear its squeal.
Ali found the M2 paratroopers switchblade in her vest, pressed the button to flip open the razor-sharp blade and held the weapon in a death grip in her right hand.
She spread her arms seconds before her body collided with Garin’s.
The two grappled like a pair of weightless wrestlers. But G
arin was stronger. He held Ali in a single-arm bear hug, slamming his left elbow into the soft tissue surrounding her face and neck again and again.
Blood poured from Ali’s nose and forehead. She could feel herself losing consciousness.
“Do svidaniya predatel,” she barked, thrusting the razor-sharp M2’s blade into Garin’s carotid artery. She jerked it forward to slice open his windpipe.
So long, traitor.
Garin’s grasp softened. Ali pressed a fist against the plunger on his chest to disengage the automatic deployment of his parachute, gently pressing his inert body away from her own.
At exactly twelve hundred fifty feet, Ali pulled her ripcord. The jet-black silk of her own chute blossomed into the night as Ali scanned the vicinity for Lee.
70
For the first time in my life, I’m terrified of losing someone.
Ali felt grateful for the instructor who had taught her how to control a parachute at the Paloma University Skydiving Club. She and Lee landed within fifty meters of one another in the center of a wheat field.
To the south, the lights of the capital city were visible in the distance.
Ali checked her watch. Right on schedule. She pressed a button on the sat phone Andy had given her until she heard a reassuring beep.
“Bollox, girl. What happened to your face?”
Hearing Lee’s voice triggered something inside of Ali. Her cop composure crumbled, and she embraced her lover in a viselike hug.
“Just a minor disagreement with that traitor, Garin.”
Lee cocked her head to the right. “What’s left of him is hanging upside down in that tree over there. Should be an interesting sight for the farmer who runs this place in the morning.”
Ali took a breath.
Composure, Alexandra. There was work to do.
She still couldn’t bring herself to let go of Lee.
“Our ride should be on its way. Sure hope they get here soon.”
Lee pressed Ali back to look her over. “Are you okay?”
Ali contemplated the beautiful brown face, the whites of those exceptional eyes that seemed to light up the night like stars, the warm smile that disarmed Ali and the delicious lips she so wanted to kiss.
“Being in love really sucks.”
Lee’s eyebrows bent downward in confusion. “Why?”
“For the first time in my life, I’m terrified of losing someone. It’s clouding my judgment, big time.”
Lee gripped Ali’s chin with her hand, shaking it gently. “Rubbish. You’re thinking with your twat instead of your head, Alexandra. We’re cops. Something bad could happen to either of us any day we go to work. You’ve lived that life for ten years. So have I. It’s what we know, and it’s what we both love.”
“This is different,” Ali said. “They know we’re coming. We’ve lost the advantage of surprise.”
Lee could see a single pair of headlights in the distance. Their ride was approaching.
“Maybe not. Those aerial fireworks lit things up for miles around. A little finesse and we might make that short Russian bastard think he killed everyone on board.”
Ali could see a flashlight next to the vehicle, now stopped about 200 meters away. Its beam ticked on and off, flashing Morse code for “USA.”
Lee put a hand behind Ali’s head, pulling their mouths together for one last passionate kiss. “Let’s go do that job,” Lee said when she finally let her lover go. “And when we’re done, we can go back to my flat and ravish the PTSD out of both of us.”
71
Govyadiny Moscava—Moscow
Another fucking dental chair? Jessica Ramirez squirmed under the leather straps that bound her arms and legs. What is it with these Russians? Don’t they floss?
Her eyes adjusted to the dim confines. A row of computer racks surrounded her in a half-circle, filled with CPUs, blinking lights and a whole lot of technology she didn’t understand. A tropical beach scene looped on a wall of video monitors that made up a mosaic of color above the racks. The cooling fans and the vast ceiling-mounted air-conditioning unit drowned out most of the ambient noise. But Jess thought she could make out the sounds of people talking behind her. Plates and silverware jangled. Was that a jazz trio playing, too?
She tried to remember the setup at The Maitland Corporation’s London headquarters. Something was different. There was no IV. No bag of saline.
“You cost me 500 thousand pounds and one accomplished pilot, Detective.”
The voice belonged to the same diminutive man Jess remembered from London. The tall countenance of Jack Crawford circled within her field of view behind The Captain.
“Vladimir Prokofiev, I presume,” Jess said with a bravado she didn’t feel. “You know, you could have simply sent me an invitation, and I would have come.”
The Captain extended a hand to encompass his computers. “I thought it fitting to show you my little playroom, before I snuff out your insignificant life.”
“Strapping a defenseless woman to a dentist’s chair isn’t exactly good manners, Captain. And do you always monologue before you kill somebody? How well did that work for you in London?”
Prokofiev turned to Crawford. “Was she like this in Nashville?”
Crawford shook his head. “Not quite. But overconfidence is definitely one of her weaknesses.”
Jess pressed on. She needed to buy time. “You know why I’m here, guys. Every law enforcement agency in the free world knows you’re here, too. If something happens to me, there will be others.”
The Captain approached her. He studied Jess’s face with the precision of a surgeon, deciding where to make his incision. “I doubt it, Detective. My protectors include the highest political authorities in three countries. I’m surrounded by trusted associates who have sworn to give their own lives to protect mine. And the little restaurant you can hear whispering behind you is simply the public face of an impregnable fortress.”
“Overconfidence,” Jess said. “You were overconfident with Vega, and you are overestimating yourself again now.”
“Am I?” The Captain asked, moving his face close enough so Jess could smell his cologne. “You assume you are not alone. Let me share a little entertainment with you.”
The picture on the video wall dissolved into a telephoto shot of a cargo plane flying through the night. “Estonian Air Cargo, Flight 27. Does that mean anything to you?”
Jess was silent, but her eyes were riveted to the scene.
“Your friends Alexandra and Liyanna were aboard that flight tonight.”
As Prokofiev said Ali’s and Lee’s names, the front of the aircraft burst into flames. The headwinds pressed the conflagration toward the rear of the aircraft, igniting the fuel tanks. The entire screen became an orange and red fireball.
The Captain’s face took on a mock sadness. “I can confirm that there were no survivors on board.”
“Anybody can create a scene like that,” Jess challenged. “Your special effects geeks are very good.”
The Captain ignored her. “And a certain agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation attempted to follow you here tonight. You must recognize the American Embassy vehicle.”
The screen dissolved into a shot of a flaming Chevrolet that Jess instantly recognized, slowly spinning through the air before smashing, nose first, into the Moscow River.
The Captain shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid that Agent Michael Wright’s body will require dental records to confirm his identification.”
72
North of Moscow
Four imposing military vehicles passed the Chevrolet SUV, lumbering toward the farm that was Garin’s temporary mausoleum.
“Interesting,” the Embassy security man behind the wheel murmured. “Those guys are usually more observant, especially when they see a beautiful American-made car with diplomatic plates.”
The Chevy felt empty without the four other team members in it. Under other circumstances, Ali and Lee might have been VIP gue
sts.
Ali’s mind was clear of the emotion that bubbled over just minutes before. She began reworking the extraction scenario.
“We won’t have coverage at the front and back of the building like we thought,” she said. “Just two of us against whatever army The Captain has for his personal security.”
Lee spoke to the driver. “Any chance we can recruit some Marines to help us out?”
“Sorry, ma’am,” he answered. “Our mission is to protect Embassy personnel. It would cause an international incident if American military personnel were found to be involved in violent action in a country with whom we are at peace.”
“At peace,” Ali muttered. “Another Pearl Harbor is twenty-four hours away. We know it’s going to happen. And our own government won’t raise a finger to assist.”
Lee tried to mitigate the tension. “You’re right, sir. We can’t ask you to violate orders. But you can give us the benefit of your experience. Our training is primarily responsive. We’re trying to break into a highly secure facility with elite forces protecting it. Pulling it off with just six people didn’t feel right. Now it’s just us two. If you were in our boots, what would you recommend?”
The driver thought for a moment, glancing in his rearview mirror to make sure the Russians weren’t following them. A smile slowly creased his face.
“I’m Lance Corporal Todd Mireles, United States Marine Corps. I was a skinny kid. Small for my age. I endured a lot of bullying until I caught up with the rest of my class. You ladies probably know the feeling. Picked on for being perceived as a weakling.”
Ali could relate.
“The one thing that kept me going was my comic book collection. Graphic novels were just becoming a thing, and I had a ton of them. Well, you can imagine what happened when the gang found that out. One day I came home from school and they were gone. It was a warm one and we couldn’t afford air conditioning, so I left my bedroom window open. The little bastards slipped in, grabbed my stuff, and slipped out.”
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