“My car broke down ’bout a half mile back. Can I get a ride? Or at least use your phone? It’s freezing out here!”
King continued walking toward them. One of them shouted even more loudly and certainly with more aggression. Then he took a step toward King.
“I’m sorry, man, I can’t understand you. I just need a phone if you could?”
An old man finished putting on a coat and stepped outside. He said something to the men, then spoke English with a heavy Russian accent. “You cannot be here. Please go.”
“Oh, thank God, you speak English!” King took a couple of steps closer. He was in striking range of the first man of the three from the truck.
The man made a move toward King, but the old man put his hand on the man’s chest to stop him. “Here! Just make quick call, then get moving. Understand?”
The old man, who King could now see was clearly Dmitry Kuznetsov, stretched his arm forward, a phone in his hand.
“Oh, thank you so much!” King stepped forward. He reached out for the phone, but instead of taking it, he chopped sideways and hit the first security man in the throat. Before the second guy in line could react, King threw the crown of his head forward and busted the man right in the nose. King used his head to strike so his hand could reach for his knife. As he moved forward, he thumbed open the blade and jammed his knife into the third man’s stomach. There were a lot of great tactics in fighting, but few were more effective than the element of surprise.
As soon as his blade ripped through the man’s coat and into his stomach, King retracted it and stabbed him in the neck. As blood began turning the snow below their feet red, Kuznetsov backpedaled into the house and slammed the door. King wasn’t concerned about him getting away. There was nowhere to run in the blizzard. However, he did have to worry about him coming back with a gun.
But that would have to wait.
The first man had recovered enough from his neck trauma to pull his pistol. King had anticipated this and already turned toward him. As the man brought the gun from his waist, King stepped inside his arm reach and grabbed him by the coat collar. The man squeezed off two shots that burrowed into the house behind them. King lifted him off his feet, turned him over, and dropped him straight on his head. As soon as King let go of the man’s coat, he turned and took a strong fist to the forehead. The man with the busted nose had momentum and rushed King, knocking him off his feet. The two of them slid to a stop in the snow, the last of the security men riding on top of him.
As King trapped the man’s arm, bucked his hips, and pushed to roll over on top of him, he heard Josiah in the distance shout, “Freeze.” The man who was now on the bottom threw a punch with his left hand at King’s head. King moved his head to the right, dodging it while simultaneously trapping the arm by the man’s neck as he wrapped his own arm around the man’s neck and under his head. King began to squeeze the man’s arm and neck together, which worked as a blood choke. The more pressure King put on, the quicker he went out. A second later, the man went limp.
“I said freeze!” Josiah shouted again as he ran up on them.
“And I said stay in the truck!” King said as he got to his feet.
The snow had let up a bit, and in the light from the front of the house, King watched Josiah take in the three men lying on the ground.
“Put your gun away. Kuznetsov is inside. You cannot shoot no matter what he does. We can’t take the chance of losing him!”
“But I heard gunshots.” Josiah was a step behind.
King didn’t have time to waste on explaining what had just happened. He searched the ground until he found his knife. He picked it up and walked back over to the man he’d just choked out and knelt over him.
“What are you doing? He’s already out!”
King jabbed the knife twice into the man’s neck where King could be sure he wouldn’t wake up.
“You can’t—”
“Dead men don’t come back to kill you, Josiah!” King shouted as he moved over to the man he’d dropped on his head a minute ago. “This is the last time I’ll say this!” King knelt down and dealt the man the same fate as his other two comrades. “This is not police work.” King stood and walked over to Josiah. “If you don’t understand that, you need to leave right now. I can use their vehicle now, so just go!”
Gunshots rang out from the doorway to the house. Josiah had distracted King just long enough to keep him from making it back to Kuznetsov. As King dove headfirst into the snow, he just hoped it wouldn’t cost Josiah his life.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Several more shots rang out. King rose up from his prone position on the frozen ground. He squinted through the snow, and all he could see was a figure crouched low, arms stretched out in front. Panic bolted all through King. He jumped to his feet, took two long strides, and dove at Josiah, landing on top of him. Josiah’s gun had gone off once. King sent up a silent prayer that it was not on target.
As King raised up on top of Josiah, Josiah was already beginning to protest. King could not afford this distraction. He dropped an elbow onto Josiah’s forehead, and Josiah went limp beneath him. King turned toward the front door. It was open and there was blood in the snow just in front of it. King’s stomach dropped.
He pulled his Glock from its holster and moved forward. “Kuznetsov! Put your gun away. Don’t make me shoot you!”
King stood at the foot of the doorway. He could feel the warmth of the inside meeting him there. The house was quiet. As far as King could tell, there was no blood on the tile floor just inside. That was a good sign. It must have just been blood from one of the other men. Hopefully Kuznetsov wasn’t hit. King moved in a couple more feet and shut the door behind him. He didn’t hear a thing. The smell of ham wafted from the kitchen. King checked the tile and could see moisture from the melted wet snow Kuznetsov had picked up from outside.
Step by step, King followed the water trail. It went past the couch on the left, and curved through an open door on the right. King wasn’t able to see the gun Kuznetsov was firing, but it had the sound of an old revolver. He hoped that was the case because he’d fired four shots outside. That would leave him with only two rounds. King was confident he hadn’t had time to reload.
There was a five-foot-tall fake tree in a pot just outside the door where the water was leading him. King eased over to it, picked it up, and tossed it through the door, shouting, “He’s in here!”
Two shots fired from what looked like a bedroom, followed by a series of clicks. It had in fact been a revolver, and now King could move toward Kuznetsov without fear of being shot. He did just that, pushing the door the rest of the way in and aiming his gun forward. He found Kuznetsov in the corner and was just able to jump to his right as a lamp flying his way crashed against the wall instead.
The revolver came flying next.
“You can stop throwing things now. I’m not going to shoot you.”
“Tell that to your man outside.” Kuznetsov’s accent was thick.
The bedroom was lit with a yellow lamp from the left corner. The one he hadn’t thrown. Kuznetsov had Albert Einstein crazy white hair and a nose that could be seen from the moon. It looked even bigger in person.
“He won’t be trying again. Trust me,” King said.
“What do you want? They told me you would come for me.”
“Who’s they?” King had yet to lower his gun. Just in case.
“I’m just an old man, trying to help out your country. I never wanted any of this.”
This wasn’t the direction King had anticipated the conversation going. He’d been in this situation many times. Rarely was the man with the gun being held on him telling the truth. King had to sift through the bullshit, and he needed to make it quick.
King made a production out of putting away his gun, hoping to make Kuznetsov let down his guard. “Look, I don’t have a lot of time. So I need you to be straight with me. As long as you do that, I promise I won’t hurt you.”
<
br /> “Promises,” Kuznetsov said with a laugh. “People in your line of work rarely keep promises.”
“True. But despite that fact, I do promise you if you don’t tell me everything that’s going on here and who’s behind it, I’ll kill you.”
Kuznetsov looked King in the eyes for a moment. “That, I believe.”
“Let’s get to it then. I’ll split that ham sandwich with you over the details.”
Kuznetsov walked around the corner of the bed, past King, and out into the living room. “Forgive me, but I have lost appetite.”
“Good, then let’s get down to business.”
The front door creaked open, and King pulled his gun. “Josiah? Put your gun down.”
The door opened further, and Josiah stepped in, holstering his gun.
“You have to get back to the truck.”
“Why’d you hit me? I was trying to protect—”
“Josiah. Get the hell out of this house or I’ll shoot you. I don’t have time for games.”
Josiah nodded and walked back out.
King put the gun away and faced Kuznetsov. “All right. Let’s start with the who.”
“You really don’t know, do you?”
King didn’t like that question. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be standing here.”
“Well then, we are both confused. Who do you work for?” Kuznetsov said.
“The United States.”
“Yes, of course. More specifically the CIA, no?”
King didn’t answer.
“Yes, well, we work for the same people. This is no surprise. Like I said, men in your line of work are rarely honest. Seems someone has not been honest with you.”
“You’re making some pretty big accusations. You mind showing some proof?”
King wasn’t all that surprised yet. People tend to come up with crazy things in order to conceal what is actually happening.
“Accusations?” Kuznetsov said. And to King, he seemed genuinely surprised. “What is it you think I am doing here?”
“I’m not the one answering the questions. Get to it or I’ll just take your key card and go down to Volkov Mining and find out what’s behind door number three for myself. Start from the beginning.”
Kuznetsov sat down on the couch. King walked around it to face him.
“I came to Seattle for conference,” Kuznetsov paused and looked up at King. King nodded. “I had lunch with Nigel Warshaw, the software—”
“Yeah, I know who he is. Go on.”
“When we finished lunch, he handed me a note. All Warshaw said before he left was that he hoped I would help, because his country needs it. I had no idea what he meant. The note said to wait five minutes and someone important would come to my table. When a man walked up with two men in black suits beside him, and introduced himself as Robert Lucas, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, I realized then why Warshaw said what he did.”
The hairs on the back of King’s neck stood on end. He did his best not to let his mind race and jump to conclusions.
“And what did the director of the CIA want with a Russian virologist?”
“I am much more than just virologist. And shouldn’t you know what your boss wanted from me?”
“Robert Lucas is not my boss. Stop assuming and keep explaining.”
Technically, Lucas was his boss, but King was sent to Alaska by the president himself.
“I just did explain. I took more money from Lucas than I could make in a lifetime, and they took me here. I told him if he had the virus, I could discover a vaccine.”
King was quiet for a moment. He walked over to the window and watched the snow. It had trailed off a bit but was still coming down. He unzipped his coat. He was beginning to sweat. What Kuznetsov was saying wasn’t adding up at all. King turned back to him.
“So you’re telling me that the US government paid you to come here, in the middle of nowhere, under an alias, all so they could have you doing something good, like making a vaccine?”
“Yes. Exactly. But for a virus that doesn’t yet exist.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
King stared blankly at Kuznetsov for a moment. His mind was pinging all over the place. He needed to consolidate all the information Kuznetsov was giving him and somehow make sense of it all. He was telling King that Director Lucas paid him to create a vaccine for a virus that had yet to hit the public. So what did that mean if it were true? That the US also created a virus? Or someone did and they managed to intervene and get a hold of it, but now they were scrambling to make a vaccine just in case it ever got out? If that was true, then who was supposed to be testing out the vaccine on the two small towns where everyone died?
King watched Kuznetsov cross his legs casually. He certainly didn’t look like a man who was worried about his situation. Did he really believe he wasn’t doing anything wrong? King had to start drilling down on this.
“Why are there so many Russians here now? If you were brought here by the US simply to create a vaccine for a virus that no one knows about, why would there be a need for so many Russians? Like the three men lying dead outside?”
Kuznetsov cleared his throat. “From what I was told, they hired a private group for security. They got them from Russia to help keep things quiet in United States. They even gave me three scientists to help with vaccine.”
“They all Russian too?”
“Two Russian, one Chinese.”
“You do get how this looks from my perspective, right?” King said.
“I do. But I cannot help perspective, only reality.”
“Okay, tell me what you’ve been sending out?”
“Sending out?”
“Yeah, samples of the vaccine, the virus? I want to know it all.”
For the first time, Kuznetsov squirmed. Somehow that question had made him uncomfortable.
“This has been a problem for me. I have spoken up several times, but nothing has been done. I almost cleared everything out and left last night, but I couldn’t do it. I have no idea what they would do to me if I just left.”
King’s mind flashed back to last night when he first saw Kuznetsov standing outside. More importantly, he distinctly remembered the worried look plastered on his face. What Kuznetsov was saying and what King read in his expression last night were adding up. Could he really be telling the truth?
“What has been the problem, Kuznetsov?”
“Oh, yes. The other scientists have been pushing me for the vaccine. They have been taking samples of it before it was ready. They said they just had to send progress reports, but I knew I could do that without samples. Sample would do no one but me any good. I am only one who could look at it and know what was right and what was wrong about it.”
Kuznetsov paused for a minute while he scratched his head.
“If you’re thinking about not telling me something, that’s a bad idea. I’m the good guy. But I think you and I both know whoever has you doing this, and those other scientists, probably aren’t more good guys.”
“You think that is true? That I have been doing something for someone sinister?”
“Don’t know,” King said as he took a seat on the couch beside the virologist. “That’s why I’m asking so many questions. I have until morning to figure this out.”
“What do you mean?”
King felt like he could push here and go all in. Mostly because Kuznetsov wasn’t going to leave his side, so there was no one he could update if he was on the wrong side of this. The side that might be trying to kill a whole lot of Americans.
“We believe that whatever you’re working on is going to be used as a weapon. To kill thousands, if not millions of Americans.”
King watched as Kuznetsov jerked back in surprise. His mouth hung open as he shook his head. If he was acting, he was damn good at it.
King went on. “So, I need you to tell me what you just hesitated to say. I have to know everything so my team can stop it.”
This time it
was Kuznetsov who was assessing King. He gave him a long look, as if he too was trying to decipher the truth, and what side King was really on.
“They didn’t know that I knew, but they also took samples of the virus.”
“Who?” King said.
“The scientist and one other man who has left with those samples more than once.”
King’s mind jumped to the two towns that were devastated by the unknown virus. Someone had taken the virus there and unleashed it. And it had to be connected to what Kuznetsov was telling him. There was almost a surefire way to know if all of it actually was intertwined.
“I need a timeline. If you can tell me each time the virus was sampled and taken out of your lab, and they line up with other information I have, I’ll walk you out of here tonight and find a way to keep you safe. Do you know how many times this has happened, and when?”
A smirk formed on Kuznetsov’s face. “Nothing happens in my lab without me knowing. And I am a scientist, I document everything.”
Kuznetsov rose from the couch. King stood with him. “If I show you this, I have your word you won’t kill me?”
“Seeing as though men in my line of work rarely keep their word, I’m not sure what good it would do.”
“Right. Well . . . you did save me from that man shooting me outside.”
“Yeah, but I did that just so I could make you talk before I killed you.”
Kuznetsov laughed. “Honesty. All right. Maybe I can trust you.”
“Whether you can or not, you know that doesn’t really matter. I’m all you’ve got.”
Kuznetsov nodded. “This, unfortunately, is true. My notebook is in bedroom. I can show you when they took the samples.”
King nodded toward the bedroom for him to go. “Don’t try climbing out any windows. I’m faster than I look.”
As soon as Kuznetsov left the room, King pulled out his phone and dialed Cali.
“You all right?” she answered.
“When was the last time your dad flew to Atqasuk?”
“Atqasuk? Why would you want—”
Alexander King Thriller Series: Books 1-3 Page 34