Total Fallout

by Alex Shaw

  Vetrov jerked back against the seat and twisted to his left. He brought the Glock up and fired a double tap directly into the chest of the driver, then he moved right and put two more rounds into the second officer. Both officers were down. Pulling himself upright, he floored the gas pedal, swung the steering right and bounced off the road and onto the sidewalk. He raised his seat as he nudged the Tahoe back onto the traffic lane. He needed to get away from the two cops he’d just shot, get out of the city, but most of all get in contact with Chen Yan. But first he had to ditch the Tahoe and find another set of wheels.

  Vauxhall Cross, London, UK

  Pamela Newman dropped the report onto her desk and shut her eyes. Although she lived for her job it generated so much damn paperwork, and paperwork was dull. She remembered way back when, as a more junior officer, she used to be out of the office running surveillance and counter-surveillance operations. She missed those days and she missed the thrill of sitting in a cold café in Berlin. What she didn’t miss, however, was the cold itself. Berlin had been cold, Warsaw had been cold and Moscow had been even colder. It had been the cold war. She sipped her tea ruefully, to ward off a shiver. Her desk phone rang. ‘Newman?’

  ‘Pamela, it’s Paul Page,’ an excited voice said down the encrypted line. Page was the SIS Head of Station in Canberra and had been responsible for leading the debriefing of their latest asset – His Royal Highness Salman bin Mohammad Al Nayef.

  ‘Paul, if you are personally calling me this must be important?’

  ‘It is. It seems that Al Nayef may have been saving the best till last.’

  ‘Go on.’ Newman sat forward in her chair. ‘What has he been holding back on exactly?’

  ‘As well as validating the intelligence we had regarding his uncle, Faisal Al Nayef’s support and links to certain extremist organisations, he has now given me detailed information on something we knew absolutely nothing about.’

  ‘That’s great progress.’ Newman wished he’d cut to the chase. ‘What’s the issue?’

  ‘The issue is according to Al Nayef his uncle has sanctioned a cyberattack on Qatar.’

  ‘That’s happened before; it’s what allegedly started the last blockade.’

  ‘This time, however, Al Nayef insists his uncle has contracted Blackline to carry out an attack using new deep fake technology.’

  Newman tried to remain calm. ‘But Blackline no longer exists.’

  ‘Al Nayef says he was in a meeting with both Kirill Vetrov and Chen Yan where their cooperation was discussed and confirmed.’

  Newman remained silent as she tried to understand the situation; meanwhile, the encrypted line whined and boomed.

  ‘Pamela, are you still there?’

  ‘Yes. I’m just thinking. When is the attack planned?’

  ‘This Friday.’

  ‘The holy day,’ Newman said.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘How is this attack to take place?’

  ‘Blackline will publish their deep fake footage. According to Al Nayef it will be flawless and the leaders of Qatar will be unable to prove it is not genuine.’

  ‘What is on the footage?’

  Page explained. Pamela closed her eyes, imagining both the footage and the uproar it would cause. ‘One moment, Paul. How is Al Nayef sure that Blackline can deliver this footage?’

  ‘Ah. He’s seen another piece of footage they have produced.’

  ‘What footage?’ Pamela asked, but she already knew the answer.

  ‘It’s the found footage of the Camden bombing,’ Page stated. ‘Al Nayef says it’s a deep fake and he knows this because he has seen both the real and doctored versions.’

  ‘Where is Al Nayef now?’

  ‘At a secure ASIS facility in Canberra.’

  ‘Listen, Paul, you must ensure that he speaks to no one else. Sit outside his room yourself. Make sure that he does not share a syllable of this with ASIS until I say he can. And give me a full written report on what he has told you.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Thank you, Paul.’ Newman ended the call realising that she had little time to prevent what could be a new war from starting in the Middle East. She glanced up at her wall clock; it suddenly seemed to be ticking louder than before. And then her phone rang for the second time in ten minutes.

  ‘Newman?’

  ‘It’s Jack.’ Tate’s voice sounded raspy. ‘Simon’s been shot …’

  Sugar Land, Texas

  Not since she was a child had Chen Yan felt so helpless. The attack she’d masterminded on the US a year before had failed and the details of her involvement had been swiftly shared, discussed and acted upon. Chen’s entire fortune was now frozen, even her secret offshore accounts. She was now on a “most wanted list” among the likes of those accused of genocide.

  Kirill Vetrov and the tiny team in Montana were all that remained of Blackline as facilities in Russia and China were seized and staff taken away. Chen now had just three million American dollars in cash to her name and was stuck in the United States. She had to recover what had been stolen from her and then continue to develop the deep fake program.

  Her hair was a mess, and sweat dripped down her face onto the crude, concrete tiles. She moved faster and faster, practising her form, and her shape, as her butterfly knives sliced through the hot, Texan air, creating the quietest of hums as they did so. Like giant metallic wasps with deadly stings. As the child of a high-profile businessman, she had grown up being told she was a potential kidnap target. Her father had forced her to train in traditional Wing Chun Kuen, a form of self-defence requiring rapid arm movements and strong legs. As Chen had got older, she had augmented her moves with weapons, especially butterfly knives. In her mind it remained a graceful, flowing art form, until either of her knives found an attacker’s flesh. She pushed herself harder, faster, attempting to seek the peace and balance her art had always given her.

  Panting, she placed her knives on her patio table and grabbed her towel. She was wet with sweat but her knives were dry, and that would not do. They should be wet with the blood of those who had gone against her, those who had betrayed her!

  The Saudis, who immediately after the failure of the last mission, had attempted to walk away from the deal. She started to shake; her wrath was all consuming. She had salvaged the contract or so she had thought but then the old man had refused to take her calls. Eventually he had reneged on the agreed one-hundred-million-dollar payment and made her agree to a much-reduced fee of thirty. Chen stared at her blades and imagined them slicing through the elderly man’s scrawny neck, severing sinew and bone. She had been reduced to scrabbling for change in the dirt, and even this she would not receive until she delivered her final, completed digital package to the old prince.

  Chen hated being beholden to anyone; however, receiving funds from Vetrov’s arms sales to the Mendez Cartel was preferable to being enslaved to the Saudis. She would have her revenge when this was over. Chen noticed now her reflection in the blades. Her face was a mask of calm, and that was something she had not expected to see.

  What Chen had also not expected to see was her cell phone lying, screen down in the grass next to the patio. She must have unknowingly knocked it from the table when she had grabbed her towel, or perhaps earlier still? She finished mopping her torso then reached down to pick it up. The cell phone was always on silent when she trained or meditated. Her brow furrowed.

  There were three missed calls from Vetrov and a text message:

  ‘RUN.’

  She sensed something. Her breathing slowed and she listened intently. There was someone in her house; she was sure of it. She sprang away from the table, grabbed her knives and moved to the gazebo, crouching down but keeping her eyes on the house. She could see shadows inside, perhaps two men. She advanced towards the back door, twin knives longer than her forearms at the ready, prepared to defend herself to the death. She reached the top step. The door opened and a large, white man in a police officer’s un
iform came out.

  She froze, knives poised to strike, and assessed his stance. His police-issue Glock was not drawn but his hand was over the top of the holster. His eyebrows rose and, as his right hand inched towards his firearm, his left hand came up in a placatory manner.

  ‘Ma’am, please put down the knives! We mean you no harm; we just need you to answer a couple of questions.’

  Yan didn’t move, and didn’t respond. Why hadn’t he rung her bell, or knocked on her door? Why was he in her house? Weren’t police officers supposed to knock and wait to be admitted? The man looked like a beat cop, the kind she had seen on the street, yet here he was on her property …

  ‘Ma’am, I’m going to need you to drop the knives!’

  Movement to her side now, in the garden. She readjusted her stance. A second policeman had flanked her and, pistol in hand, was advancing. He was louder and less polite than his partner. ‘Houston PD! Drop your weapons now! Drop your weapons now and lie on the ground with your hands on your head!’

  So, they had found her.

  This was the end.

  Surrender was not an option.

  She nodded, let a smile form on her face, and then she moved, speedily, gracefully, ducking and turning, spinning and weaving until she found herself behind the first policeman, one blade at his neck and the other touching his protruding belly. ‘Drop your weapon, or he dies.’

  The second officer’s voice became louder, more assertive. ‘Drop it! Now!’

  Yan heard a new noise. The front door. Heavy footsteps. Moving both arms, simultaneously, with grace and power, the right blade cut through the officer’s throat and the left sliced through his stomach, and then she was turning and sprinting into the house, seeing two large, fit-looking men in suits moving hastily towards her along her wood-panelled hallway. These weren’t policemen. Their weapons came up, she ducked, and wheeled and let fly with both her blades, turning them into heavy throwing knives.

  The first man was hit in the chest and shoulder. He stumbled backwards, arms flailing, smacking the walls, but the second man was quicker, or better trained. He fired as Yan sprang into the air. She felt the heat of the round as it tugged at her blouse and then a white dagger of pain in her side, but she continued on and landed ready to deliver a combination of strikes. But then a heavy fist struck her squarely in the face. Small but sinewy, her head snapped backwards and she fell. Her back slammed into the wooden floor. Her vision started to lose colour and she found herself unable to keep her eyes open.

  Undisclosed medical facility

  The coffee was bitter, which matched Tate’s mood, but drinking it gave him something to do. He sat in the hospital, dejected and broken, whilst his brother received emergency surgery for a gunshot wound to the head. Kirill Vetrov had killed his parents and may yet have murdered his brother too. Tate felt helpless; he was a fighter but there was no enemy he could attack to save his brother. Tate had never felt so scared, even when facing down the barrel of a loaded gun.

  A door opened further along the corridor and a woman in a white doctor’s coat headed in his direction. She had a serious expression on her face, which made Tate’s insides twist and turn more than any physical trauma he had experienced. He stood when she was four paces away and prepared himself for the news.

  ‘Mr Tate, your brother’s surgery was successful. He is in a serious yet stable condition.’ Her accent was precise, Washington perhaps, maybe brought to Texas as a specialist for her expertise. ‘However, I have made the decision to put him in a medically induced coma.’

  Tate felt two powerful, invisible hands tighten around his throat, whilst another pair pummelled and squeezed his chest. It took a quick mouthful of coffee to make his voice cooperate. ‘What does that mean? Are you saying he’s brain-damaged?’

  The doctor wet her lips, before she spoke, as though she had expected to answer this exact question. ‘The good news is that the bullet did not enter Simon’s brain, rather it bounced along the side of it, like a stone skimming over waves, before it exited. Your brother has, however, suffered trauma to the right temporal lobe, which we operated on to remove any bone and bullet fragments and to ease the swelling.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer my question, doctor.’ Tate tried to control his anger and remember the doctor was not responsible for his brother’s injury.

  ‘At this stage I cannot rule out that there may be temporary, perhaps even some permanent impairment; however, the majority of patients who suffer trauma to the brain make a full recovery.’

  Tate’s battlefield medical training didn’t extend to brain surgery so he asked, ‘What’s the right temporal lobe do?’

  The doctor smiled, now that she was on safer ground. ‘It manages visual memory, including facial recognition, verbal memory – understanding language, and reading the reactions and emotions of others.’

  Tate felt sick and was sure he was going to pass out. He thrust out his left hand against the wall to steady himself.

  ‘Mr Tate, I think you should sit down. You may be in shock.’

  Tate dropped to his seat.

  ‘I understand this must be difficult. Would you like me to explain to you why I’ve put him into a medically induced coma?’

  ‘Please.’

  Tate nodded along, as she talked him through her reasons, but he couldn’t take it in, and they both knew it. ‘How long will you keep him under for?’

  ‘I think a safe estimate would be one to two weeks. He’s young, fit, and that helps.’

  She stood. ‘He’s in a private room now. I’m sorry I can’t let anyone, even his next of kin, see him at the moment. I suggest you get some rest yourself and come back tomorrow afternoon. You should be able to see him then.’

  Tate managed to thank her, his voice low and hoarse. The success of his career had rested upon him taking lives in order to save others. Faced with a woman whose sole aim was to save life he felt insignificant, like a Neanderthal stabbing his fat fingers into the dirt to make cave paintings whilst she used the finest brushes, and pigments to create internationally acclaimed works of art.

  ‘You really look like you need to rest, Mr Tate.’

  ‘No rest for the wicked.’

  She smiled curtly, turned back the way she had come and left. Tate waited a beat, finished his coffee, and threw the cup in the bin. As he walked towards the double doors they were opened and two men in dark suits nodded at him, fell in step – one in front and one behind him – and escorted him to an underground car park. A solitary dark Cadillac SUV was waiting for him. They climbed in and the SUV started to move.

  The last few hours had been a blur and Tate could barely remember the details. Panicked calls to the British Embassy and Pamela Newman back at Vauxhall Cross had resulted in Simon being admitted to a specialist facility, with no questions asked. Whilst Tate had sat and waited for news of his brother’s condition, Newman had attempted to sort out the fallout. She had instructed Tate the US authorities were not to be informed of the existence of the deep fake weapon, at least not until Neill Plato had got his hands on it. She had given them Chen Yan, traded her in fact on the condition that no questions were to be asked about what Tate was doing in the US.

  This, however, left a large logistical problem. The team needed on-the-ground backup to help with the Giant and with tracking Vetrov. In the end it had been Akulov who had suggested a feasible option, although one that Newman had been against. Tate had argued that there was no other solution, so she had to agree and Akulov called in a favour.

  Tate nodded in thanks to the two passengers already seated with him. Akulov was one and the other was heavy-set and sported a huge horseshoe moustache.

  ‘I hear it is good news?’ Miguel Becerra said, his moustache quivering.

  Tate used the doctor’s exact words: ‘He’s is in a serious yet stable condition.’

  ‘That is … encouraging.’

  ‘Update?’ Tate said, changing the subject.

  ‘We have not been t
ardy whilst you have been with your brother,’ Miguel said. ‘The Giant Bravo is in one of my organisation’s safe houses. He is understandably not entirely happy; however, that is nothing compared to the mood of Angel Mendez who has a “room” along the hall. I am impressed by your boss, Jack. She has some serious “connections” in order to make the Americans look the other way regarding your activities. Oh and as for Detective Vinyl? Well, he works for me as well as the Mendez Cartel and has been compensated.’

  Tate noticed there was now a smile behind the moustache. Tate didn’t care if Vinyl also worked for Burger King. ‘What about Vetrov? He’s the only one who matters to me.’

  Miguel nodded. ‘You want him because he killed members of your family; this I understand. I want him because he killed my patron, my friend – Francisco Arellano.’

  ‘Vetrov. He is in the wind,’ Akulov said.

  ‘Explain?’

  It was Miguel who did so. ‘From my contacts in local law enforcement I have learnt that a black Chevy Tahoe was stopped at a set of lights because the officers were suspicious of damage to its bodywork – bullet holes. The driver shot those two police officers dead. I have not seen the dashcam or bodycam footage, as I cannot be perceived to be getting that involved; however, from the description given to me it was him – Vetrov. He is now the subject of a state-wide manhunt for a straight-up double-cop killing. You know when you kill a cop, the gloves come off.’

  ‘He’s heading for Montana,’ Akulov said.

  ‘Obviously,’ Tate replied, rubbing his face with his hands.

  ‘I may know where.’

  Tate looked up at the Russian. ‘How?’