by Alex Shaw
It was August but the chill of the Montana water took his breath away. Water filled his mouth and he slipped below the surface. But then his feet hit rocks and he kicked off, breaking the surface and gasping in air. Tate’s HK was gone and so was a lot of his strength. His chest was on fire and his lungs felt constricted. But the ballistic vest had held. He knew he couldn’t be seen from above; he was a black shape in black waters. He drifted past the house, saw a terrace above him, and a man with a gun pointing at Akulov. Tate let himself drift to the shore and found himself bobbing in between several boats.
*
There was more shouting outside in Russian. Vetrov frowned. His two men still hadn’t returned. ‘Dima, Vadim!’
There was a banging of feet. Another man appeared, neither of the two he had called. His face was smeared with blood and he was holding his side. ‘They’re dead, they’re all dead. But I got him. He fell in the water.’
Vetrov glared at Akulov and raised the Beretta. ‘Wolf 6. Tell me, who is that outside?’
Akulov had nothing to lose. ‘That’s the man who came to kill you.’
George started to sob. Vetrov grabbed her by the arm and addressed the new man. ‘Keep your eyes on him. If he moves, shoot him.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Vetrov frogmarched George Eastman back into the house.
‘He’s deserted you,’ Akulov said to the man guarding him. ‘Walk away now and you can live.’
‘I’ve got orders.’
‘This isn’t your war.’
‘He’s my boss. He pays me.’
‘His money has run out.’
‘What?’
‘Listen to me.’ Akulov slowly stood. ‘He has lost it all. He cannot pay you.’
The Russian snorted. ‘We are Blackline!’
‘I was Blackline, last year with the EMP.’
‘You know about that?’
‘I was in Maine and then I was in Washington.’
‘I was here,’ the man said. ‘We did nothing and saw nothing. We were babysitting.’
‘I was with Maksim Oleniuk in Washington. Where was Vetrov?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘So he was not with his men?’
The man looked down. ‘No he wasn’t I—’
Akulov shot forwards, grabbed the gun, turned his shoulder and twisted, throwing Vetrov’s man to the floor. He held the gun on him then shot him in the leg. ‘Do not run away.’
Akulov rushed into the house as the soldier lay on the decking writhing in pain. The house was quiet, empty, the only sound a metallic banging from below. Akulov saw steps leading down and took them. A door at the bottom was open and banging against its metal lock. He burst through the door to find himself out in the open, beside a jetty. Vetrov and George were at the other end.
The two Werewolves faced each other. Vetrov held George in front of himself like a shield. Akulov’s anger rose again. The man was not fit to be a Werewolf and never had been. Each held a Beretta trained on the other.
‘Let George go,’ Akulov said. ‘And I’ll let you go.’
‘Put down your gun, Wolf 6, and you can walk away.’
‘You’ve lost everything; why lose your life too? I cannot let you take her.’
‘You won’t stop me. If George dies, the deep fake program dies with her; it is in her head!’ He sneered. ‘Now I understand. It’s your code. You won’t kill a Werewolf, not even me.’
‘Let her go.’
Vetrov’s Beretta started to move up, towards George’s head.
Akulov dropped his Beretta.
In the light cast by the house, Akulov saw Vetrov sneer again … and then a shape rose like a demon out of the water from behind Vetrov, and violently grabbed his legs. Vetrov fell sideways into the water and George fell onto the wooden decking of the jetty.
*
Tate stood up in the knee-high water, holding Vetrov by the collar with his left hand and punched him in the face with his right. Vetrov stumbled backwards and Tate dived on top of him. In the shallows, Vetrov’s back slammed against the pebbles on the bottom as Tate pummelled his face with his fists. Vetrov tried to defend himself and managed to buck and push Tate sideways. He grabbed a rock and tried to slam it against Tate’s head, but Tate brought his shoulders up and twisted away. Tate rose to his feet, but the Russian twisted his foot and Tate crashed to the ground. Winded, Tate felt himself drifting into the deeper water, his chest aching, the water getting colder and sucking away the pain. He realised it was actually stealing his strength.
With a monumental effort, his ballistic vest now weighing a ton, Tate stood and waded back towards the Russian who was stumbling onto the shore just past the jetty.
‘Vetrov!’ Tate yelled, finger pointing.
The Russian slowly turned to face him but backed away onto dry land.
Tate continued to move forward. They squared off on the sand.
‘What do you want from me?’ Vetrov asked.
‘Everything,’ Tate replied.
‘Who are you?’
‘You murdered my parents in Camden, you shot my brother in Houston and now I’m here to finish you.’
Vetrov smiled.
Tate lunged forward, the jacket making him slow. Vetrov stepped aside and swung a fist at Tate’s head. Tate blocked it and moved into the arm and drove it down. Vetrov fell to his knees and Tate delivered a straight kick to his head. Vetrov sprawled backwards against the sand. Tate took a step back, panting, and undid the ballistic vest. He slid out of it, immediately feeling lighter but wincing at the hot needles of pain that enveloped his lungs. He staggered. Vetrov sprang at him, his shoulder striking him in the stomach and driving him back to the ground. Tate tasted blood. Vetrov straddled him and launched several quick blows to his head and face. Tate got his arms up, but the second and third blow got through. Tate’s vision started to grey out and his arms began to fall away from his face. Vetrov drew back his fist for one last, huge, killing blow.
As if in slow motion Tate saw the fist moving towards him, in and out of focus. He jerked his head to the side and the fist hit nothing but sand. Tate’s left elbow jerked upwards and struck the side of Vetrov’s head. The Russian wobbled. Tate now struck with his right elbow. The Russian’s jaw cracked. Tate pushed away from Vetrov and got to his hands and knees as the Russian fell face down into the sand. Tate rested for a few second and then got to his feet, grabbed the Russian by the collar and dragged him towards the water.
‘Jack! Jack, it’s over!’
Tate paused to look up at Akulov standing on the jetty above and shook his head slowly. Then he carried on towards the water. He waded out until the water was above his knees and pushed Vetrov’s head below the surface. The Russian came round and frantically tried to fight back. But Tate’s hands tightened around the man’s neck. The struggling began to slow as his limbs weakened. After a few moments, the water grew still again. Tate rolled him over and watched Vetrov’s eyes become lifeless, as he killed him, with his bare hands.
Epilogue
Three months later
Vauxhall Cross, London, UK
The room was cramped for two people and too warm, but Plato didn’t mind at all. He watched, enthralled by George as she again went through her latest piece of code. Plato munched on a fig roll and nodded. For the last three months George and Plato had been engaged in what could only be described as a “code battle”. George would create a new algorithm and Plato would then interrogate it with one of his own. It was an ongoing process of both improving her deep fake creation and strengthening Plato’s programs designed to spot it. Each day she spent six hours with him, before being taken back to a classified SIS facility.
Plato knew it was immature, unprofessional, but he felt like this had been the best three months of his life. He found himself thinking about her when they weren’t together and gazing at her when they were. It was irrational, but it was both her work and her that he had fallen for. Plato knew, however, that whatever
he felt for George had to remain locked up, like she was when they weren’t together.
‘Do you have any more fig rolls?’ she asked.
‘Right.’ Plato got to his feet, and half stumbled across the room to grab another packet. He was still clumsy around George but at least he was no longer tongue-tied. In fact, he realised, George was the only woman he’d ever really been able to talk to.
There was a knock at the door. Plato saw George flinch, like she always did. ‘Come in.’
‘Hi, Neill, George.’
‘Hello,’ George said, tersely.
Plato’s smile widened when he saw both Jack Tate and Simon Hunter standing outside. ‘How are you?’ he asked.
‘Fine thanks, just a little tired.’
‘I think he was talking to me, Jack,’ Hunter said. ‘Better each day, Neill, thanks.’
‘Good. What can I do you for?’ Plato asked.
‘Have you got anything new on Akulov?’
‘Sorry, Simon. Nothing. It’s as though he’s completely disappeared off the face of the earth.’
‘I see. Please keep looking. We need to find him.’
‘Will do.’
*
The doors of the lift closed. ‘Why on earth did you let the bastard go?’
Tate cut his brother a look but made no reply as they rode the lift down to the ground floor of Vauxhall Cross. This was not the time and certainly not the place for Simon to accuse him of anything.
‘He should be in prison or six feet under,’ Hunter continued.
‘We’ve been through this.’
‘And we bloody well will again, Jack.’
It was a touchy subject for both men. Tate had looked the other way whilst Akulov had simply taken the Armada and driven into Canada. Hunter was incredulous that the man responsible for the assassination of two British diplomats was at large. Tate knew it was wrong, that his actions went against everything he stood for, but the man had saved his life. Letting Ruslan Akulov go had felt like the right thing to do then, and it still did now.
‘How do you really feel?’ Tate asked.
‘Er normal, oh wait. Let me think.’
Tate placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder. ‘Go on. You can tell me, Simon.’
‘I feel exactly like someone who was shot in the head three months ago.’
It had taken a week and a half for the doctor to be happy enough to bring Hunter out of the medically induced coma, and then another three and half before he was released to home care. Now all outward signs of the injury had vanished, but Tate still worried that Hunter was not yet himself. He seemed a little blunter and a little more irritable, whilst Hunter, he knew, was fed up with being asked how he felt.
They reached the ground floor, scanned their passes to leave and exited onto the street. Both put on dark sunglasses. Hunter’s were on medical advice whilst Tate wasn’t a fan of squinting.
‘Do the Americans know yet? About George and her technology?’ Hunter asked. He’d been out of the loop and today was his first visit back to SIS headquarters.
‘No,’ Tate confirmed.
The deep fake attack the Saudis had ordered on the emir of their neighbouring Gulf State had not gone ahead. According to Plato the video footage was more than faultless. George had also confessed to creating a second piece of footage that showed a perfect deep fake of His Royal Highness Faisal bin Salam Al Nayef ordering the attack and then ranting against the US President. If either of these pieces had been released, a rift would have been created that could have taken perhaps a generation or more to mend. In terms of geopolitics George Eastman’s deep fake program was the equivalent of a nuclear bomb, and Tate was happy that he had stopped it. He just wished the technology had been lost and not taken by the Secret Intelligence Service because he could never trust a video ever again.
A car pulled up in front of them. Both men got in and it pulled away from the kerb.
‘Where are we going?’ Hunter asked.
‘A trip down memory lane.’
‘Where?’
‘We’re going somewhere to have a drink in your honour.’
Hunter sighed. ‘You know I can’t stomach surprises.’
Tate tapped his nose and went silent for the remainder of the journey across central London, whilst Hunter scrolled through his mountain of emails on his reactivated work iPhone and muttered mild obscenities.
The car slowed, and Tate looked around. ‘We’re here.’
Tate got out of one side and Hunter got out of the other. Hunter looked at the street sign on the wall in front of them: Pratt Street, NW1.
‘You chose this place because of the name, didn’t you?’ Hunter said.
‘What’s so funny about “Tony’s”?’ Tate said, with a straight face, pointing at the name of the café next to the street sign.
‘I meant the name of the street, you pratt!’
‘How dare you. I’m outraged!’
Hunter smirked and sat at an empty table outside the restaurant. ‘Buy me a coffee then.’
It was autumn but the sun was out and the sky was blue, and Tate felt good. They waited to be served. Tate sighed and looked around. ‘Did you ever think we’d be doing this, Simon?’
Hunter was confused. ‘Doing what?’
‘The pair of us – you and me – sitting on steel chairs and luxuriating in Pratt Street, Camden?’
‘Yeah, that’s exactly what I told the careers adviser at school I wanted to do when I grew up.’ Hunter smiled. ‘You know it’s good to be back.’
‘I hear you, brutha!’
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Ruslan Akulov pulled up at the address he had been given by the priest at the local church. It was the same church the man had worshipped at and the same place where a stone had now been laid to remember him when all hope of his return had finally dried up.
The Canadian, Kevin Belanger, now existed in memory only, his sun-bleached remains long forgotten in the rubble of a compound in Syria.
Akulov stepped out of the car he had rented with a new fake identity. As he walked up the path to the front door of the neat-looking, granite-fronted house in Fergusons Cove he knew he had to be Ruslan Akulov. He knew he had to tell Pat and Jane Belanger what had happened to their son and he knew he had to beg for their forgiveness.
Gulls whirled overhead and shrieked like avenging angels warning those inside that evil was approaching, and deep down Akulov knew this was true. Speaking with Belanger’s parents would not bring him any peace or redemption, but he sincerely hoped it would help them. Their son was dead and he could have prevented that from happening. Whether they decided to report him to the Canadian authorities or whatever they wanted to do, his fate was in their hands. The course of action they chose was acceptable to him. Ruslan Akulov was tired of running away.
***
If you loved Total Blackout, don’t miss the new blockbuster thriller from Alex Shaw!
TRAITORS
You never know who you can trust …
A traitor who can’t be caught.
French Intelligence officer Sophie Racine is tasked with travelling into the heart of a warzone in Ukraine. Her mission is to assassinate Sasha Vasilev, a Russian mole who took the French secret service apart piece by piece and gave their secrets to the Kremlin.
A prisoner who can’t be killed.
Ex-SAS trooper and MI6 Officer Aidan Snow is also in Ukraine. Sent by British Intelligence, he must extract Mohammed Iqbal, an innocent citizen caught up in the conflict in rebel-controlled Donetsk.
A war that can’t be won.
As Snow and Racine find themselves drawn deeper into the crisis, their missions collide with devastating consequences. Outgunned and outnumbered, their only hope is to fight their way through and out of Donetsk before Russia closes its new iron curtain.
Perfect for fans of Chris Ryan, James Deegan and Vince Flynn, this is an explosive action thriller you won’t be able to put down.
Want to read it
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Acknowledgements
Writing is often a solitary process, which is why I am so grateful to those around me who have by turns inspired and supported my journey.
My biggest inspiration has been my wife Galia, for without her I would not have been able to carry on. I’d also be unable to write without my two sons, Alexander and Jonathan, and writing something that they one day will read and hopefully enjoy spurs me on.
I need to thank my editor at HQ, Finn Cotton, and my agents, Justin Nash and Kate Nash, for believing in my work and wanting to champion me and publish it.
I’d like to thank my friends both inside and outside of the book world for putting up with me rabbiting on about my next book, my next idea, and for being vocal supporters. This is a long list but includes: Neill J Furr, Liam Saville, Paul Page, Chris Salter, Steph Edger, Paul Grzegorzek, Alan McDermott, Charlie Flowers, Jacky Gramosi Collins, Louise Mangos, Rachel Amphlett and Karen Campbell.
Lastly I must thank you, the reader; if it were not for you I’d simply be talking to myself!
Dear Reader,
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