Sam Turner was the first out of the restaurant’s door. He kept it open for the others and took his position behind Mapother. With Zima and Lisa leading the way, they started on the ramp toward the upper level. Turner gave instructions to Mapother’s driver, another former FBI agent named Frank, who was circling around the block in the modified black Yukon Hybrid Mapother used for transportation, to pick them up on 45th Street.
With people sprinting to catch their train, shoppers and diners converging in and out of the shops, and tourists taking pictures of the terminal’s magnificent architectural details, Grand Central Station was a hectic place to be at this hour.
“We’ll get him, Mike,” Mapother said.
“I thought I had him four months ago. I’m not holding my breath,” Mike replied. Four months earlier, he had led Lisa and Jasmine Carson, an IMSI support team leader, on a raid to seize and take control of the Sheik’s mobile headquarters, an eighty-six-foot Azimut yacht located in Spain. He had been sure his dad was aboard the boat, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, Alexander Shamrock, also known as Omar Al-Nashwan, murdered Jasmine Carson before Mike shot and killed him. To make matters worse, Mike discovered that Alexander Shamrock wasn’t only a former US Special Forces officer; he was also the son of Steve Shamrock, a close friend of President Robert Muller and CEO of Oil Denatek, one of the larger publicly traded oil-and-gas companies in the United States.
“Did you hear from Richard Phillips?” Mike asked as they were reaching the main concourse. Richard Phillips was the director of National Intelligence and, with the president, one of the only bureaucrats to know the true purpose of the IMSI.
“I did.”
“And?”
“They didn’t find him.”
Damn it. Following the raid on the Sheik’s yacht and the death of Alexander Shamrock, Steve Shamrock had disappeared. That had made a lot of people nervous, including Charles Mapother. Steve Shamrock was one of the three billionaires who’d helped create the IMSI. Mike couldn’t wrap his head around the reasons the oil executive had financed the IMSI if his plan had been to sink the United States all along.
“Maybe he’s dead,” Mike suggested. “The Sheik might have killed him.”
“That would put many minds at ease,” Mapother said.
“Not yours?”
“No, not mine, Mike. We have no idea what the Sheik knows about us. Are we compromised? What kind of intelligence did Steve Shamrock leak before he disappeared?”
“Did he have access to all of our classified information?”
“He didn’t,” Mapother said. “But he knew about the IMSI. He financed it, goddamn it!”
Mike opened his mouth to reply but just then Sam Turner’s powerful voice reverberated through the main concourse, “Threat to the rear!”
Then the first shot rang out.1
........
Louis Wall wasn’t the best shot, but it was hard to miss when you were so close to your target. He had expected Charles Mapother to be alone. He wasn’t. Big deal. He’d deal with Mapother first and if the others caused him any trouble, he’d deal with them, too.
Acquiring the Beretta 92 FS had been easy. Eight hundred dollars had been enough to convince a former contact to hand over his pistol. Two magazines of thirteen rounds were acquired for an additional two hundred dollars. A bit on the expensive side, but Wall didn’t mind. He was a rich man now. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Wall drew the Beretta from its holster and brought it up to eye level, its muzzle pointed at Mapother’s back. That was when the tall black man walking behind Mapother turned around and scanned his rear. For a fraction of a second, they made eye contact and Wall hesitated. It was enough for the man to sidestep to his left, effectively blocking Wall’s view of his target. The man yelled something unintelligible at the same time Wall pulled the trigger.
........
Mike Walton reacted intuitively. Pivoting toward the sound of gunfire, his left hand found the compact Taurus pistol holstered in the small of his back. By the time his eyes acquired his target, less than two seconds had lapsed since Turner’s verbal warning. The man on the other side of his iron sight was built like a bulldozer. He was in a stable shooting position twenty meters away, and Mike could see the man’s pistol go up and down as he fired rounds in quick succession.
No time to aim.2
Mike’s first round hit the man in the abdomen while his second shot nicked his shoulder. The man dropped his weapon and took a few steps back before collapsing. Mike scanned left and right, looking for more targets—difficult to do with all the commotion the firefight had generated. Suitcases and other luggage were left on the spot as their owners ran for their lives. A woman, standing next to a baby stroller, screamed at the top of her lungs.
Did a stray bullet hit her baby? Mike saw Zima sprint to her. He continued scanning but a pit formed in his stomach when he saw Sam Turner sprawled on the floor, blood pouring out from under him. Lisa was already next to him with Charles Mapother, dragging Turner to safety, out of sight. The man Mike had shot was now less than ten meters away. He moved and managed to get on his knees, his eyes searching for his weapon.
“Don’t move! Police!” Mike yelled.
A shot was fired. Then another. The man yelled, his hands clutching his neck in a failed attempt to stop the bleeding.
There’s another shooter! Friend or foe?
Mike dove to the floor and then rolled to his left just as another round ricocheted to his right.
Definitely not friendly.
Where was the shooter? There were still dozens of people left in the terminal. Some had found concealment while some others simply lay down on the floor with their hands on their heads.
There. On the East Side balcony, right under the Apple Store, a short man with a gray hood jumped the last few steps and dashed toward the Lexington exit. It was hard to say from this distance, but the man seemed to be holding a small submachine gun.
Mike looked behind him. Lisa, Mapother, and Turner were nowhere in sight. Zima had grabbed the baby from its stroller and was running back toward the restaurant, the toddler’s mother in tow.
Satisfied that Sam Turner was in the capable hands of his wife, Mike sprinted across the main concourse in pursuit of the man who had just shot at him.
CHAPTER 4
New York City, NY
Zakhar Votyakov was furious. He had never failed his father before. He had underestimated his opponents, and he was now paying dearly for his mistake. He should have known better. After all, he was the one who’d assembled the file on Charles Mapother. Mapother, a former FBI special agent, went to work as a freelancer for the Central Intelligence Agency in the eighties because he thought the FBI’s policies were impotent to stop terrorists. Zakhar’s research taught him that Mapother had the reputation of being a ruthless interrogator and that he had the habit of surrounding himself with capable and dedicated people. Still, taking down a single man should have been an easy task. Even for a fool like Louis Wall.
In one swift movement, he collapsed the stock of his Arsenal Shipka submachine gun. With that done, the Shipka was less than thirteen inches long and easily concealed. His last shot had missed its intended target, but he didn’t have time to re-engage. Louis Wall was dead; that was all that mattered now.
Going down the steps two at a time, Zakhar jumped the last four and ran through the Grand Central Market toward the Lexington exit. Outside, police sirens filled the air and so did the smell of burnt peanuts from a nearby food cart.
Time to disappear.
Amid the commotion around him, he removed his gray hood and grabbed a loose-fitting beige jacket from his backpack. He put on the garment over the Shipka’s sling so his weapon wouldn’t be obvious but would remain accessible.
Going north on Lexington Avenue, Zakhar walked past the Verizon store before turni
ng right on East 44th Street. He didn’t dare look back when he heard the police vehicles roaring behind him as they raced on Lexington Avenue. His car, a navy-blue Chevy Impala, was parked in a public parking garage just east of Third Avenue.
The turmoil at Grand Central Station had somewhat diminished, but Zakhar spotted two uniformed police officers running toward him from further up East 44th Street.
They don’t have my physical description. Stay calm.
Zakhar stepped down from the sidewalk and let the two officers run past him. His eyes followed after them, but neither gave him a second look. Once he was certain they didn’t represent a threat, he turned around to resume his walk toward his car but stopped dead in his tracks. Less than two meters away, a tall, heavyset man wearing a dark, two-piece suit over a white shirt and blue tie blocked his way. The man’s right hand was inside his suit jacket where a service weapon would be if he had one. The gold NYPD detective badge on the man’s belt pretty much confirmed that assumption. How did he know?
“Don’t move, and make sure your hands stay where they—”
Zakhar never hesitated. Action’s faster than reaction. Always.
He closed the distance almost instantly and threw a powerful kick at the detective’s right knee. The detective cried out but was successful at pulling his service pistol from its holster. Before he could fire, Zakhar was already on him, gripping the other man’s wrist with his right hand while his left grabbed the barrel of the pistol, pushing it outward. A shot went off harmlessly, and Zakhar continued the outward movement of the pistol, effectively trapping the detective’s finger inside the trigger guard. The finger snapped. An enraged scream came from the officer’s mouth. Zakhar was now in control of the detective’s pistol, but the other man wasn’t beaten yet. A powerful left hook connected with Zakhar’s chin followed by an uppercut that sent him flying in the air.
Zakhar forced his eyes open. He was on his back, spread-eagled on the sidewalk with no pistol in his hand. His vision was blurred, he was dizzy, and his jaw was throbbing. He tasted blood. He had cut his tongue on a broken tooth.
The detective’s eyes were filled with rage. A pocketknife had materialized in his hand. With no other options, and still on his back, Zakhar brought up the Shipka and fired.
........
Mike Walton’s heart was racing. Where did the bastard go? Mike had holstered his Taurus to avoid unwanted attention. NYPD cruisers were now parked on Lexington Avenue. Mike guessed other police vehicles were also covering the other exits. Some uniformed officers had rushed in, while others remained outside.
What would I do if I wanted to escape? Lexington Avenue’s traffic is to the south. If I didn’t want to make it easy for a police car, I’d go in the opposite direction.
Mike jogged northbound on Lexington, but to no avail. No man with a gray hood. Aware his prey could have changed clothes, Mike estimated his chances of finding him from nil to very low.
Three shots fired in rapid succession changed his mind.
........
Zakhar watched the detective stagger backward. A weaker man would have already collapsed. The detective was strong; his will to live even stronger, guessed Zakhar. But the three red dots on his white shirt told Zakhar all he needed to know; the police officer had only a few seconds to live. Disbelief, surprise, and finally fear registered on the detective’s face. Then his eyes went blank and he fell.
Aware the sound of his Shipka had attracted attention, Zakhar, still lightheaded, pulled himself together and forced himself to his feet. A dozen or so pedestrians looked at the scene in shock, some of them frozen in fear. But a few had their smartphones out and were recording.
My face will be all over the news in less than an hour. I need to get out of here. Now.
He was disoriented. The detective must have hit him harder than he thought. He had difficulty focusing on anything. The world around him spun. His legs buckled under him.
“Hey, you!” someone yelled behind him.
Zakhar turned around. Two Arabic-looking men walked purposefully towards him. They wore red T-shirts, with the word “Security” written on the front. They carried baseball bats. He was about to get hit. He tried to bring the Shipka up but he had no strength left.
........
Mike Walton ran as fast as he could. Less than eighty meters away, a man was down on the sidewalk. Two men armed with baseball bats were surrounding another man, but this one had a submachine gun.
Mike was sure he had found who he was looking for even though the gray hood had vanished. He had to take over the situation before anyone else got hurt. What are these two bozos playing at? Didn’t they know you never brought a baseball bat to a gunfight?
Fifty meters.
Mike reached for his Taurus and slowed his pace to a brisk walk. He controlled his breathing so that he could analyze the situation.
Forty meters.
Radios crackling and heavy footsteps behind him had him take a quick look.
Mike cursed under his breath. Three uniformed officers, the same he’d seen standing right outside Grand Central Station’s Lexington exit less than two minutes ago, were now running with weapons in hand in the same direction as him. They’d probably heard the same gunshots. His FBI identification wouldn’t work with these guys. They wouldn’t care. The best thing was to let the officers do their job and then use the IMSI to dig out the intelligence the NYPD got from the shooter.
It didn’t please Mike, but he had no choice. Too many questions would be asked if he got involved. He holstered his Taurus and crossed the street to get a better look at the takedown that was about to happen.
Then the head of the man he’d been chasing exploded, and Mike was forced to hit the ground once more.
CHAPTER 5
New York City, NY
Igor Votyakov adjusted the scope of his Dragunov sniper rifle. He had a clear view of the scene. His brother was surrounded and he blamed himself for Zakhar’s predicament. He should have shot the plainclothes police officer that had engaged his brother. From his sniper’s nest inside the minivan’s modified trunk, he could have taken the shot. The sound suppressor attached to the rifle would have ensured a clear exit.
But his father had given him clear instructions. He wasn’t to intervene unless absolutely necessary. Zakhar had to prove himself in the field.
“More uniformed officers are approaching,” Denis said from the driver’s seat. Of course, Denis wasn’t his real name. He was an SVR agent—Russia foreign intelligence service.
“How many?” Igor asked, his voice betraying his impatience. He wanted his subordinates to be precise. Denis wasn’t cutting it.
“Five or six.”
Five or six. How Denis had survived this long in this business was a mystery.
“Is it five, or is it six?”
“It’s three.”
Idiot. “How far from us are they?”
“Less than seventy-five meters,” Denis replied.
What? “How did they get so close to us without you noticing them?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they just—”
Igor wasn’t listening anymore. He had a job to do. His window of opportunity was closing rapidly. He had three magazines of ten rounds. He could do a lot of damage before being taken down. But that wasn’t the mission.
He cursed his father. Twice.
He took a few deep breaths, made one final adjustment, and started to caress the Dragunov’s trigger. The 7.62 bullet exited the sniper rifle’s muzzle at a speed of 2723 feet per second and took only slightly longer than a third of a second to reach its intended target.
Through his scope, Igor saw his older brother’s head turn crimson.
........
Mike didn’t hear the shot and had no way of knowing where it had originated. The NYPD uniformed officers were scrambling to fi
nd cover. He crawled forward to get a better view and yelled to the civilians to get down. Some did but most of them ignored him and remained standing, unsure what was going on.
Was the sniper waiting for targets of opportunity to pop up or was his mission completed already? Mike glanced at the NYPD officers across the street. One seemed to be issuing orders. Seconds later they ran to one of the fallen men, the one wearing a dark suit. A police badge was attached to his belt. One officer had his gun drawn in the general direction from which the shot had come, while the other two pulled their fallen comrade out of harm’s way.
Mike tried to get up, to offer some kind of assistance, but he couldn’t. His legs were like Jell-O, his breathing had suddenly become erratic, and his heart was pounding so hard it threatened to pop out of his chest.
Not now.
........
Igor Votyakov fought the urge to engage the uniformed officers. The one with his gun drawn was an easy target and Igor figured the officer was aware of this. He offered himself as a target while his colleagues rendered support to the man his brother had shot.
Igor respected bravery. An officer within the GRU Spetsnaz—an elite military formation under the control of the Russian military intelligence—he understood the strong bond between men fighting or serving alongside each other. His finger moved away from the trigger.
“We’re done here,” he said, heart heavy, his brother’s exploding skull carved into his mind. He had no doubt, no doubt whatsoever, that his brother’s soul would visit him in his dreams for a long time to come. But there was no time to dwell on what he had just done. He pushed the horror of his act to a faraway corner of his mind, where he had put so many similar thoughts over the course of his illustrious career with the GRU.
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