by Alex Shaw
During the same call Plato had confirmed Akulov was fine to fly and was not yet on any watch list, but due to the double shooting of the police officers, Vetrov was now being treated like public enemy number one. He’d be pinged as soon as he stepped foot in any airport.
Tate thought about the task ahead. Vetrov couldn’t fly, which meant that he’d either steal a car, hail a cab, take a Greyhound bus or catch a train. Amtrak didn’t go to Eureka, and driving in a stolen car or a succession of taxis was both too problematic and too pedestrian. So that left either a mixture of trains and buses or just the bus.
So the assumption Tate made was that Vetrov was attempting to get to a place he knew by means he did not. Tate reckoned then it could be anything from, at worst, six hours to at best twelve hours until the lead Werewolf arrived. That is if he either wasn’t stopped by the police or had decided to cut his losses and run. Regardless of Vetrov’s intentions or mode of transport, Tate and Akulov would be arriving in another three and a half hours. Two more hours of flying time remained to get to Glacier Park International Airport, the nearest place to Eureka the Gulfstream could land without getting them potentially pinged, and then a fifty-four-mile drive from the airport to Eureka accounted for the rest.
Tate had been on Google Earth and Street View to get intel on the location and whilst both these tools got him near to the location, the blue Street View line stopped short of the actual address.
Tate sighed. The mission was a fastball. It had started that way and it would end that way – everything happening on the fly, without time to prepare or to plan. He was about to descend into a hostile environment with the help of only one other man, who up until a few years before had been on the same side as the men they were going to engage. Tate glanced over at Akulov, who as a seasoned operative had now closed his eyes and was taking the downtime to sleep. There was nothing either of them could do until they got to Eureka, but for Tate there was also no sleep.
He’d called the hospital to be told there was no change in his brother’s condition. He’d had a creeping dread that Simon had worsened, even though the medical staff had said his condition had neither improved nor deteriorated. His guilt covered him like an invisible shroud, and it seemed to be trying to suffocate him. Simon shouldn’t have been on an active mission; he was not a field operative but an intelligence officer. Tate knew the only way to break free of his remorse would be to capture and kill Vetrov.
But Vetrov was not the only wanted man. Akulov had assassinated two British diplomats.
International airspace
Neill Plato felt out of place and a little self-conscious. The plane was the smallest he’d been on, but it had been the longest flight he had ever taken. He didn’t know much about planes; they weren’t his cup of tea, nor were cars. The only type of transport that he really felt at home on was a train, or a cruise liner. Now that was style. To be able to sit back and watch the world pass by, or take a stroll on deck and do the same, that was travel as opposed to travelling. However, he had to admit that this jet was very comfy. There was seating arranged for fourteen, but he and the three-man E Squadron team were the sole passengers. The three soldiers were either snoozing or listening to music with their eyes closed.
Plato knew very little of the travel arrangements and had just been told to take whatever he needed to secure Eastman’s software and hardware. Plato had grabbed his stuff, been driven to his flat by an SIS driver to collect his passport and an overnight bag, and then chauffeured out to an airfield he didn’t recognise where the jet had been waiting. He wasn’t, if he was honest with himself, at all nervous about the mission; he was only the “tech support” and who would want to target him? No, he was excited. He’d finally get a chance to meet George Eastman who, in some ways, may prove to be the biggest tech influencer of the decade. Sure Eastman hadn’t been able to hack into the Qatari immigration database, like he had, but what Eastman had created was equal to any piece of fine art. Eastman had created digital life.
Plato finished his second cup of tea and realised that his mind had been wandering. He was tired, yet if he slept he’d not be able to fully enjoy the flight. He peered out of the porthole. They were over the sea. He wanted to see the US pass by below – the valleys, the mountains and everything in between. This trip wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination a “jolly” but that wouldn’t stop him jolly well enjoying it whilst he could.
He thought about Jack, and then of course he thought about Simon and he became angry with himself. Their lives were on the line and here he was behaving like a kid on his first flight to see Mickey Mouse. He closed his eyes and sighed as he started to assess whether he had everything he needed for the mission. It was a little late now, he reasoned, if he’d forgotten anything but at least if he knew now it would save him time on the ground. His time at SIS had seen him work with many outstanding operatives and Jake Tate was securely in his top two. Plato just hoped that he would not fail him, or his brother.
Glacier Park International Airport, Montana, USA
The smiling clerk at the Avis desk upgraded their standard SUV to a premium one. Tate took the keys without bothering to check the paperwork and walked into the parking lot. He blipped the fob and the lights of a vehicle flashed. Both men exchanged looks and Tate felt a sudden, stabbing sense of déjà vu.
‘It would be useful if this too carried a full assault kit and was armoured,’ Akulov noted.
Tate said nothing and climbed in behind the wheel. A year before, the men of Blackline had used the very same vehicles, and Akulov had been one of them. Tate tapped the screen on the sat nav, or GPS as the locals called it, and entered the address of the weapons cache Akulov had given him.
He then swiped at his iPhone, brought up satellite images of the place Plato had sent him. The road ran north-west to south-east, half a mile to the east of downtown Eureka. Partway down the road a wood obscured several buildings.
‘The exact building is the one at the back,’ Akulov confirmed. ‘The cache extends under the building and the land. These places were built by Soviet engineers and are deep and in most cases remote enough that they haven’t been spotted by the ground-penetrating radars of prospecting oil and gas companies. The buildings are occupied by several unrelated owners. The resident of that building is former GRU. He was given a healthy pension to become American and live out his retirement in Eureka.’
This made sense to Tate. Back in the Nineties IRA quartermasters were responsible for weapons caches, but did not live with them for fear of detection. At that time the IRA and their associates were wanted men, but here in the US, Russia was not the enemy, allegedly. ‘What’s his name?’
‘The Resident?’
‘Yes.’
‘We were never told. If access to the cache was required, we had to present him with a password, to authenticate who we were and then an operation code from Moscow to authenticate the mission.’
‘Are you telling me these caches are active sites controlled by the Kremlin?’
‘These were specific to several Spetsnaz units, and mine has been disbanded. I have no idea if the residents do or do not know of this. I imagine they continue to ignorantly guard an ageing stockpile of munitions.’
‘How old are the weapons?’
‘Some of the caches we inherited, others were created within the last decade for us. In some cases weapons were destroyed when new variants arrived. We may well find five-year-old weapons or something once kissed by Brezhnev. If Vetrov has visited this place, the man is either dead or has permanently vanished, and the weapons will have gone too.’
Rexford, Montana, USA
Vetrov looked out across the water. It was good to be back in Montana and it was especially good to have contacts who could get him past regional security and onto a private jet. The pilot at Fort Smith Regional was a small-time coke runner, and for an agreed discount on his next order and the promise that he wouldn’t tell the Mendez Cartel about the money he’d been skimming
from them, Vetrov had been flown discreetly north. The USA was the home of capitalism and he was glad that anything was still possible. Arriving at Glacier Park International Airport, Vetrov had used a credit card to hire a car. The card wasn’t his but it matched ID he had, which did show his real face. It was a chance he knew but one he’d had to take.
The small hire car was now hidden in the garage of the cabin they were using as a base and Vetrov felt secure at least until morning. If Akulov had not appeared by then Vetrov knew he had to pull out and take Eastman to safety. Vetrov liked it here, by the river. It was peaceful and reminded him of home, except his home had never been this peaceful and the furnishings in the family apartment whilst being made from wood, were shoddy and ill-designed. It would be a shame to burn the place to the ground when they left, but as he saw it that was the only way now that he could disappear: he could die and then rise from the ashes anew, initially in Canada, and then who knew? And then after that he’d give Eastman another target, and another. Vetrov felt the giddiness of power surge through him once more. Free of Chen, he would become not only powerful but also wealthy, private-island wealthy.
There was a knock at the door behind him.
‘Yes?’ He turned, taking his eyes off the dark waters of the Tobacco River.
‘George wants to talk to you.’
Akulov’s eyes narrowed. The man in front of him had been Baltic Spetsnaz but he doubted now that he would pass the medical. He looked the part: he was large, bearded and had a piercing stare, but he also had a stomach that pushed against his belt in an attempt to escape his shirt. ‘George?’
‘Da.’
Akulov noted that the man had not called their hacker in residence “Eastman”. This was another sign it was time for him and Eastman to go. ‘Is there an issue with the project?’
‘I do not believe so.’
‘In that case instruct our colleague I am currently busy.’
‘OK.’ The man turned on his heels and left.
‘Stop.’
The man turned back, a question on his face. ‘Chief?’
‘Has the Resident been reminded what is required of him?’
‘Da. I told him myself.’
‘Good. That is all.’
The six men here had served him and Blackline well, but when the Blackline money failed to hit their various offshore accounts in two weeks’ time, he knew their loyalty would falter. However, they would not live to see that happen. Vetrov focused again on the water, hidden by the night but ever present, ever watchful. Tomorrow morning, when the operation had been completed and the footage delivered, he would take Eastman and kill everyone else; the men were no longer needed. Their corpses would burn with the house and the other excess equipment.
Lundeen Road, Eureka, Montana, USA
The drive from the airport to Eureka would have been spectacular in daylight, or even an hour earlier at sunset, but in the pitch-blackness of northern Montana, even the mountains were hidden, seemingly behind a black, theatrical curtain. Tate killed the lights and let the heavy SUV roll silently down the incline awhile, before he hit the brakes and brought them to a halt. They were just up the road from the target buildings. Parked, with the lights off and not illuminated by any street lighting, the Tahoe sat like an ominous dark shadow against a darker background. Both their front windows were cracked open to listen for an approaching traffic, be it on foot or vehicular.
As they had travelled as regular passengers, albeit on a private jet, they were unarmed and as such vulnerable. It had been a trade-off between speed, stealth and deniability.
‘Give me ten minutes. If I’m not back by then get out of here and call my boss.’
‘Like we agreed,’ Akulov said. ‘Just remember you are Wolf 6.’
‘Yeah.’
Tate made sure that the interior light was switched from “door” to “off” and exited the Tahoe. He crossed the deserted rural road and walked, tree side, down the hill. Newman had told Tate to get to Eureka and wait for the team to arrive, and he had agreed to this knowing full well that he would not. He had to get ahead of Vetrov; each and every minute he waited brought his adversary a mile closer to both him and George Eastman. In the drive from the airport, they had agreed Tate would be the one to make the first approach to the Resident. Until the firefight he had been an unknown to Vetrov and he hoped he had remained one to his men. And then there was the lurking doubt in Tate’s mind. Could he really trust Akulov?
He reached the entrance to the property, a simple concrete access road leading to a rudimentary roundabout, with branches leading off to each individual property like some type of grey octopus. “Osminog”. In the shadows Tate smiled – it was the Russian for octopus and somehow always tickled him and Simon. He instantly lost his smile and felt his resolve harden. Somewhere soon he would again find the man who had murdered their parents and had tried to kill his brother. Tate took a calming breath. He moved onto the grass and skirted the treeline before cutting across two lawns to bring him level with the start of the target building’s territory.
He noted that although it was not late in the evening, none of the single-storey cabins had lights on. Neither inside nor out. It was as though the entire place was empty, like an abandoned film set for a WWII prisoner of war movie. Tate continued onwards and then a spotlight flicked on, flooding his vision with a penetrating white light. He backtracked into the shadows at the side of the cabin, blinking, as the front door opened.
A voice spoke. It was powerful but resigned and had a local accent. ‘If you’ve come to rob me go ahead, but if you’re here for any polite, social reason, stop hiding in the goddamn shrubbery.’
‘That sounds fair to me,’ Tate said, using an American accent that he hoped sounded half convincing. It was a stupid thing to do, but his only real course of action. Tate stepped into the light, raising his left hand to shield his eyes and instantly losing all element of concealment.
‘Help you?’ the man said, a tinge of fear now evident in his voice.
Tate could just make out his outline behind the light, but no detail, so he walked forward past its beam and stopped at the bottom of the steps. Blinking, he now saw the speaker was elderly, and dressed in sweatpants, a shirt and cardigan. Tate spoke the line Akulov had given him. ‘I’m looking for my dog. I think he ran in here.’
Initially the man didn’t reply, didn’t move. The spotlight switched off, probably on a motion detector and timer set-up, Tate thought. ‘This isn’t a place for dogs. It’s wolf country.’
Tate felt the soundless, night air gently move around him. There was a slight scent of wood – wet, barky. ‘It’s Werewolf country.’
‘Then you’d better come inside, and shut the door behind you.’ The old man turned and went deeper into the cabin.
Tate advanced up the stairs, all senses on alert. If this was the Resident then Vetrov either hadn’t been here yet or hadn’t made contact, or he had and it was a trap. Inside, the odour of polished wood overpowered that of the natural from outside and Tate found himself in an entrance hall. He moved through this to a central living area. The owner was now sitting in a wooden rocking chair and pointing to another. Tate scanned the room. He neither saw nor heard anyone else.
‘Please take a seat.’ The man had switched to Russian. The accent, unsurprisingly, was Moscow.
‘I will, thank you,’ Tate replied in the same, but his Russian was St Petersburg.
The Resident observed Tate for a moment before he spoke. ‘So what is it you need from me?’
‘Enough for a sole operator.’
‘Just one man? So we are not invading yet? That is good. I have enjoyed living in this place and would not want to have to give it up.’
Tate didn’t have time to hear the man reminisce. ‘Am I the first who has come here?’
‘What do you mean by that?’ The Resident’s face took on an uncertain expression. ‘Since when?’
‘You tell me?’
‘Yes. You
are the first. I had hoped that perhaps I had been forgotten about, but I am here to serve the motherland, whomever may now lead her.’
‘I need to see the equipment.’
‘Ah, I see it is urgent. Then I will need you to kindly provide me with your mission code.’
Tate knew this was where he’d hit a roadblock. ‘Things have changed. This is a commercial venture.’
‘What? Explain?’
‘I do not have a mission code. What I do have is twenty thousand dollars, which is yours for a few pieces of kit I can’t personally source, if you understand me.’
‘A commercial venture?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have this in cash? Where, in your pocket?’ The Resident sounded sceptical.
‘In my car.’
The Resident leant forward in his seat. ‘There was a time when perhaps I could have used my own strength and force to prevent you from just taking what you wanted. My days of fighting are over, much like the union it served. I can see that you are a man of honour. Which Werewolf were you?’
‘I am Wolf 6.’
‘Fine.’ The Resident rose from his chair, with remarkable swiftness for a man of his age. ‘You go and get your money, and we will have a deal. I shall wait here.’
Tate stood and walked back to the door, opened it and went down the steps. The Resident was very much alive, which meant that Vetrov, for whatever reason, had not been in contact. Tate wouldn’t return with a single dollar; he’d return with Akulov.
*
Akulov still remembered the briefing when he and the others were informed by their commanding officer a decade before of the existence of the weapons caches. It was, the officer had beamed, a truly undetected weapon that they could weald against the United States. Akulov wondered what twelve men could do but supposed that they would just be a vanguard of sorts or perhaps a guerrilla unit sent to sow the seeds of havoc. Either way he was excited when the team had been sent to the US for several months to both perfect their accents and their knowledge of the customs and culture. Each team member had also been given a cache to inspect. This had not been his, neither had it been Vetrov’s. So whose had it been, and what had happened to him? Akulov wondered how many now of the twelve were left other than him and Kirill Vetrov …