by J. F. Kirwan
One had gotten through.
She blinked hard as her head began to throb. Focus. The ceiling cracked behind Salamander, more shafts of light breaking through, chunks of brick and concrete sinking quickly to the floor. Salamander moved forward, raising his arms as if to swat her out of the way. Nadia’s limbs became rubbery and numb. The toxin was working outside-in. First her extremities, eventually her lungs.
She had to remember where her knife was because she couldn’t feel it in her hands, couldn’t feel her fingers. Her left hand, that’s where it was. She flung her arm upwards with as much force as she could muster, and caught him under the armpit. The knife pierced the suit and found flesh, and she watched with satisfaction as Salamander’s head shook back and forth, but only for a second.
He struck her, shoved her aside. Jones was still facing the device, working frantically, a pair of wire clippers in his hand, reaching inside the warhead’s intestines, finding its heart. He must have known what was going on. But he hadn’t run. He stayed, even now. He must be so close. But Salamander was going to win, was going to kill him. She finned erratically, trying to get back to Jones before… A glint of silver appeared in Salamander’s massive, gloved hand. With the other hand he grabbed the top of Jones’s head, and rammed the knife straight through the back of his neck.
Nadia stopped trying to fin, and drifted down towards the floor like the silt. She heard the splash of someone entering the water, and another, and another. Too late. She could see the timer: 59 seconds. Salamander turned once towards her, lifted some kind of secondary visor so that she could see his face. He was smiling. He pulled it back down and then swam fast down the tunnel.
Torch beams flashed around but she could only see Jones, still hunched over the warhead’s innards. She pawed her way over, barely able to feel any part of her body. Jones’s head bobbed upwards and she saw his innocent face, his eyes focused instead of glazed, still willing the bomb to be defused even as his brain was shutting down. A wave of grief swept over her. She felt so sorry, and prayed his family had gotten away. They’d never know what a hero he’d been at the end.
40 seconds.
She gazed down to where his hands were. One held a wire, the other was about to cut it with pliers. As a diver came over behind her, his torch beam lit up the snake-pit of coloured wires, and this particular one, too. It was blue. She recalled what Jones had started to say, hours earlier. Could it be? The diver peered over her to the timer, then turned her around to face him. Jake. But her mind was counting.
30 seconds.
She flicked her eyes – one of the only parts of her body she had any control over – back towards the wires. He shook his head, as if it was all over.
25 seconds.
She flicked her eyes again.
CUT THE WIRE!
He gazed at her, and held her shoulders. She did her best to shake herself out of his hands, barely able to move. Wake up, Jake! For God’s sake!
15 seconds.
His eyes narrowed. He glanced towards the wires, then back to her. She blinked once, slowly. YES! Suddenly he pushed her aside, and she floated, paralysed, facing the ceiling, and all she could do was count.
Four, three, two, one.
She was still there. Jake reappeared, grinning. She tried to smile back, but she could no longer move anything, even her eyes. The outside moved around her as Jake tugged her towards the hole in the ceiling, and she knew this was it. She had one last wish: to see London, intact, on the surface, before her diaphragm muscles locked and she asphyxiated. It was okay. Soon she’d be with all of them. Katya, her father, Bransk, Jones…even Lorne. They could all have a beer together. God must have a stash somewhere, for special occasions. If not, the other guy would have some for sure.
But as her face mask was removed and she was manhandled and put into some kind of winch lift system with Jake that rocketed upwards, it began to get more difficult to breathe, and she heard Jake shouting, yelling for a medic, and she wanted to tell him it was okay, that with her dose of radiation maybe it was better this way, and then the afternoon sunlight burst upon her face as they breached the surface amongst rubble and black and yellow tape and soldiers and police, and London was still there, its skyscrapers gleaming.
Her lungs stopped working, and her eyesight began to fade, and the cacophony of sirens and helicopters became muffled, and she felt herself slipping away, until she saw Jake’s face, determined, as he raised his fist up high, a syringe clasped within, and he stabbed it down into her sternum and straight into her heart, and she heard herself scream her way back to life.
Epilogue
It was a month of funerals. London, Moscow, and at her family home back in Uspekh near the banks of the Volga. Jones’s funeral in Camden Town was where she finally cracked. His nine-year-old daughter said she didn’t care if her father had saved London, she wanted him back. Nadia said she wanted him back, too, and the mental dams she’d been hiding behind for weeks crumbled, and her grief poured forth.
Greaves had been there, on crutches, and afterwards had taken her to one side, handed her a small phone and said, ‘Anything, anyplace, anytime.’ Mallory had miraculously survived, the one bit of good news that stopped Nadia going over the edge.
It was also a month of reprisals. The second mole turned out to be Arash. When Jake had been temporarily promoted after Lorne’s death, so had she, which moved her up the chain, but also her assistant Tom. Once he had full access to Simon’s interrogation, he quickly realised that Arash had been suppressing data; otherwise they’d have identified the warhead’s location much earlier. Arash had also secured an escape route for Salamander. Nadia was impressed. Arash had been one hell of an actress.
Jake had said this was what they now called Level 3 infiltration. Level 1 was a single double agent, Level 2 a double agent who caused someone to fall in love with them, thus compromising them. Level 3 was a new ball game. Two lovers managed to infiltrate an organisation, covering each other’s tracks – their mission parameters including a reciprocal termination clause if one or other was unmasked. It was hard to unearth, because even the best lie detectors couldn’t always unravel the deception due to the conflicting emotions. Nadia briefly wondered if she and Jake could try it one day.
But Arash’s interrogation – aided by the colonel and his men – led to a string of arrests from Moscow to Singapore. Ironically, Salamander’s attempt on London and the G20, during which, at the final count, eight world leaders had perished in Manchester, had actually united foreign powers, so that for the first time their intelligence agencies collaborated fully. Salamander’s network was trashed. But he was still missing. And Nadia wasn’t willing to allow the few leads they had left go cold.
***
She sat in the colonel’s office. The large painting of his father was gone, replaced by an enlarged photo of the colonel shaking Putin’s hand and receiving a medal. He was on his way to becoming the youngest general in Russian military history. He entered, noticed her studying the photo, and cleared his throat.
‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ he said. His former bluster and self-importance had returned. But it was moderated, more mature. He didn’t have to prove himself any more. Except maybe to her.
‘Yes I do,’ she replied.
He sat down and placed a white envelope on the desk. She reached for it but he placed his hand over it. She withdrew hers.
‘There’s a procedure…’ He seemed momentarily lost for words, not sure how to broach the subject. She waited.
He began again. ‘I spoke to the doctor. There is an experimental process, to counter the…the type of cancer you are likely to develop. A new gene therapy coupled with immune-response augmentation. Something like that. Only twenty per cent chance, but you have the necessary gene.’ He made eye contact briefly then broke it again. ‘But it has to be applied when the victim – I mean patient – is asymptomatic. It’s very painful, I hear, which shouldn’t both
er you, but –’
‘Thank you,’ she interrupted. ‘I appreciate the offer. But I have to go after him now.’
The colonel frowned, drummed his fingers on the envelope. ‘He’s seventy if he’s a day. Surely –’
‘He’s not done. Besides, we both know who he’ll come after first if he gets the chance.’
The colonel nodded once, and passed her the letter, opened his laptop, and began typing.
Nadia studied him a moment. ‘Nice photo of you and Putin,’ she said, then leaned closer. ‘You owe me.’ His typing paused, but he didn’t look up. She left his office.
***
On the plane to Hong Kong with Jake, in first class this time, probably thanks to Sasha, the colonel’s assistant, she dared to hope. Six weeks since Chernobyl. No symptoms after the first week. When the stewardess offered champagne, she accepted the bubbly and clinked glasses with Jake.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘I don’t want to tempt fate, but after London I actually feel lucky for the first time in my life.’
Jake’s brow furrowed, then smoothed. ‘I’m not sure we’ll find Blue Fan or her grandfather, and I’m not sure we can take him down if we do. But what the hell, let’s enjoy the moment.’
After dinner, when the cabin was dimmed and most people were already in slumber, she grew drowsy, but couldn’t fall asleep. Her stomach rumbled. At two in the morning when Jake was lightly snoring, she suddenly felt sick. She undid her seat belt and made a dash for the loo just behind the cockpit. Inside, she threw up the dinner she’d had three hours earlier, and was about to flush, when she spotted it. Small, round, red. A dot more than a drop. Like a full stop.
Hers.
She sat on the floor inside the cubicle, staring at it until the stewardess knocked politely to ask if she was okay. Nadia flushed the loo, washed off her face, and came out.
‘I need to use a satellite phone,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want to wake my boyfriend.’ The stewardess took her to an empty seat and showed her how to operate the phone. Nadia dialled.
A sleepy woman’s voice answered. ‘Hello?’
‘Sasha, I need to speak to him. It’s urgent.’
There was a rustle of linen, murmurings and a growl, and then the colonel was on the line. ‘What is it?’
‘I need support. A third man, to join us in Hong Kong.’ She’d been thinking about what Jake had said, that maybe the two of them couldn’t take Salamander down alone, and decided she agreed, especially given her condition. What had her father always said? If you can’t make the right choice, make the choice right.
The colonel sounded exasperated. ‘I already offered you our best operatives. As did MI6 I believe. Who do you want?’
There was the problem. But he could work it out. ‘I don’t know his real name.’
Exasperation didn’t cover it. ‘Nadia, for God’s sake!’
‘He used to work for Kadinsky, probably others.’
The colonel sighed. ‘Does he at least have a nickname, something for me to go on?’
She pictured him, the man she and Jake would need in Hong Kong. The only man she knew who was as scary and as skilled a killer as Salamander.
‘He’s called the Chef.’
Nadia closed her eyes, but didn’t sleep. She sat back, and recalled Cheng Yi’s last words, how she would not hear Salamander coming for her. But that wasn’t her way. Nor had it been her father’s, who’d once told her that if you are going to kill someone, you should look them in the eye. So now it was different. She was going after Salamander.
And she wanted him to see her coming.
If you enjoyed 37 Hours, and missed out on the prequel, you can turn the page
and read the thrilling opening to first book in the stunning
Nadia Laksheva Spy Thriller Series… 66 Metres.
Prologue
The only thing worth killing for is family.
Her father’s words to her, the day they’d come for him.
She’d been fourteen when two men in combat fatigues and balaclavas burst into the kitchen where she and her father were enjoying breakfast. The armed commandos hadn’t seen his pistol lying beneath a folded newspaper. While her father struggled with the men, his eyes flicked between her and the weapon. She could have darted for it, threatened them, helped him. But she hesitated. The moment slipped past. They threw a black hood over his head, cuffed him, and dragged him away… to be interrogated, tortured, executed and buried in the woods. A single thought haunted her ever since.
Had he known they would come?
***
Four years later, Nadia picked up his Beretta, its dark metal cool in her hands. She checked and reloaded the magazine. She walked to the window, took one last look at the wild garden where her father had taught her to shoot, and the gravel path leading through the pine forest to the banks of the Volga. There, she’d learned first to swim, then to dive. Turning away, she stashed the pistol in her backpack and crept downstairs, hoping to escape unseen.
But her mother was waiting for her on the doorstep, arms folded. ‘You’ll end up a killer just like him, Nadia. Or a whore, like your sister.’
Nadia pushed by without replying. She passed through the creaking gate that had so often announced her father’s return, and breathed easier after the turn of the road. She waited an hour for the bus, partly hoping – but mainly dreading – that her mother would come running around the corner begging her to return.
Fifty miles from Moscow, where her sister Katya lived, everyone had to get off the bus at a security checkpoint to show papiren. Nadia left her backpack under the seat. When she reached the front of the line, a young soldier flicked noisily through her passport, then glanced up, surprise lighting his smile.
‘Happy birthday,’ he said. ‘Eighteen. A special day.’
***
Nadia moved into a grotty studio flat in Old Arbat, where each night she fell asleep exhausted from working in the local bakery from four a.m. until three p.m., then at a supermarket until nine at night. She kept her hair cropped, dressed for comfort, and was often mistaken at first sight for a young man, which was fine with her. She liked boys well enough, but hated the unsubtle flirting, the vodka-fuelled race to unconsciousness, the lies. She’d loved her father, but he’d been one of the worst with women, and she’d seen the damage it had done to her mother.
She didn’t get enough time with Katya, but on Wednesdays they’d go to the Sevastopol Hotel, the rock-bottom market. They’d start on the sixteenth floor and work their way down, Katya usually buying her little sister Chinese or Afghan trinkets to brighten her dingy flat, seeing who could negotiate the hardest, laughing about it afterwards over ice cream. And every Sunday afternoon they’d head to Gorky Park, taking turns to push each other on the swings just like when they were younger, and ice skating as winter approached, always hand in hand. Sometimes they talked about their parents, but only back in the past, during those good, early years. But when they’d hug, Nadia remembered how they used to hold each other in bed during their parents’ screaming matches downstairs.
Katya never invited Nadia to her place, never spoke about what she did with the rest of her time. Nadia didn’t want to probe, didn’t want to break the spell. Besides, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Then the ever-gorgeous Katya invited her dark-haired kid sister to a party at a luxurious country dacha owned by a wealthy businessman, Kadinsky. Nadia was never formally introduced, though Katya clearly knew him very well. Nadia was mesmerised by the women with perfect skin in glittering, low-cut dresses, the handsome and not-so-handsome men, their jewellery and fancy cars and easy talk of big deals. Viktor, a man twice her age, who turned out to be someone in government, seduced her. He wasn’t bad-looking, took his time in bed, and left cash for her breakfast in the mornings.
She let things coast for six months, no demands or promises on either side. She presumed he was married. She never asked, and he never
said. She gave up the early morning bakery job, and thought about getting a cat.
Then one day Viktor was on the news, handcuffed, being forced into a police van. She leapt off the sofa and began packing a bag, but within minutes a loud rapping sounded on the door. The Beretta was on the table, fully loaded. She hid it under a loose floorboard, then opened the door.
Receiving misappropriated funds. That’s what they told her at the station, though she was never formally charged, never saw a lawyer. Once inside Lubyanka prison, Nadia was informed she’d be their guest for twelve years, ten if she behaved. On the anniversary of her father’s death, she gazed through the prison bars, studied the sad faces staring back at her from the ugly block opposite. She turned away, took in the inside of her cell. The double bunk with rancid sheets under which she shivered each night, curled up in the foetal position. The iron toilet that stank of her own piss and shit – they wouldn’t give her the bucket of water to flush it until lunchtime. The cold grey bars, faded whitewashed brick walls, not even graffiti to lighten her mood. And the lone hook in the ceiling that her former cellmate had used to end everything while Nadia had been out in the exercise yard. The fourth suicide since her arrival.
Ten years? She wouldn’t make it.
Shouting erupted down the corridor. Wolf-whistles, tin mugs clanging against cell bars, lascivious remarks from several lesbian inmates, one of whom already had her eye on Nadia. And then a gruff man’s voice, more like a growl. Silence. Nadia stared at the bars. It couldn’t be anyone for her. No one had visited her since her incarceration. But she listened. A man’s shoes, heavy, impatient, and high heels clacking behind, almost running to keep up. Nadia smelled her sister’s perfume, and took a step forward as the footsteps approached. But Katya wasn’t alone. Nadia took a step back.
Kadinsky.
Since being locked away, she’d heard on the grapevine that he was a gangster, not a businessman, and now she saw him close up for the first time, he fit the bill. He had a gleaming bald head, like he actually polished it every morning, and was fat without being flabby, as if his weight was there to throw around, to crush you if necessary. He wore an expensive, baggy beige suit, and gold jewellery dripped from his wrists and neck. Katya stood behind him in a skimpy red dress and high heels, tousled hair falling behind her shoulders, her large eyes hopeful and scared at the same time. There was no guard with them. Kadinsky held a ring of keys in his hand. He selected one that looked indistinguishable from the twenty others dangling from the ring, shoved it into the slot, turned it with a resounding clank, and stepped inside.