As Artur continued forward, the guards broke off from Yermakova and pounded down the hallway toward him. Skirting their advance, Artur dipped into the side hallway that led to his laboratory and scanned himself inside.
When the lab door shut, his knees buckled and he felt his world tip. He met the cold linoleum floor on his hands and knees and crawled his way to his workstation, inching closer and closer to the mound of letters that always occupied the top of his desk.
He grabbed a handful of the letters and brought them down before him. Holding the thick, worn, wrinkled papers, Artur let out a heart-wrenching sob. For a long moment, Artur clutched at the letters and let himself succumb to the wave of earth-shattering emotion. General Sokolov’s words held him tight, shaking him, pounding him into oblivion.
He sat like this for half a minute, before his heartbeat slowed and steadied.
For a moment, Artur felt like he’d entered some sort of limbo, an otherworldly space between his conscious and subconscious.
He floated in that ether for a few seconds. Basked in the serenity of it, until the floodgates opened and another, more complex emotion took over.
Rage.
White hot and searing, it bubbled up within him so raw that he was brought back to reality. His attention narrowed and crystallized, a plan forming in his brilliant mind.
Artur opened his eyes and stood. Wiping the tears from his face, he shoved the letters into his pocket and then turned to the computer at his desk that housed all his research. Plugging in an external hard drive, he started backing up the computer, then turned to face the rest of the laboratory.
His eyes flickered to his bunk in the far corner of the room, then to the gurney where Subject 8831 had woken from her surgery. Artur strode to the gurney and stopped before the tray that contained his surgical equipment. Snatching one of the remaining surgical knives, Artur walked over to his bunk, ripped off the sheets, and then plunged the knife into the middle of the mattress and tore sideways.
Pushing his hand inside, he moved his fingers around until they stopped on something cold and metallic.
He pulled out the MP-443 Grach pistol and held it in front of his face, remembering when he had stolen the weapon six years before, right from under Yermakova’s nose.
The computer dinged, indicating that all his research was fully loaded onto the external hard drive. Thrusting the hard drive into his pocket, and tucking the pistol into his waistband, Artur walked over and stood on the spot where Subject 8831 had killed the guard.
The plan for what he was about to do next was shaping quite well in his head. He knew the layout of the sharashka probably better than anyone, probably even better than Yermakova herself. As the lead scientist, Artur had access to nearly every room, corridor, and lift—even during a lockdown. It was the reason why Subject 8831 was able to use his keycard to get into the emergency stairwell during her escape attempt in the first place.
But while Subject 8831 might have been brave in her escape attempt, she’d been completely shortsighted.
Artur was anything but.
His eyes flitted to a small black box next to the surgical tray and the words of Marko, the Ukrainian subject in Red Block, came back to him.
I’m a helicopter pilot. You’re keeping me alive for a reason!
Marko had been right. Artur was keeping him alive for a reason.
Marching over to the black box, Artur flipped open the lid and grabbed the only remaining vial of clear liquid from within.
He snatched an empty syringe, extracted the liquid from the vial, and put a safety cap over the needle.
The scopolamine and sodium pentothal glistened under the laboratory’s halogen lights and Artur visualized the final piece of his plan fitting together perfectly in his mind.
Turning off the lights to his lab for the last time, he stepped into the hallway, looked up and down to make sure the coast was clear, then headed to the armory.
There was something there he needed. A key that dangled around Captain Yermakova’s neck and a password embedded in her brain. Artur hit the hallway running, a sense of anger, purpose, and revenge burning through him.
Chapter 70
POST 866
ARMORY
CAPTAIN YERMAKOVA SHUT and locked the door to the armory and then stepped back into the hallway. She’d just received confirmation from Lieutenant Klimentiev that all the GRU personnel were locked inside their residences.
Tapping through the lockdown procedure on her tablet, she made sure that the fail-safe process could not be overridden once the GRU personnel heard the EL-5 countdown sequence through the facility’s intercom. It had been laughable how easy it was to convince Klimentiev that her actions were for the safety of her subordinates.
Fools.
Minutes before, the last group of guards had left the armory, armed with live rounds to eliminate Sokolov’s men and capture the general. Yermakova figured it was best to return upstairs and watch the show from the safety of the control room.
As soon as Sokolov is captured, I will initiate EL-5.
The guards will bring Sokolov to me, then I will take him to the surface and fly him to Vladivostok.
Two of her GRU helicopter pilots were already warming up her chopper above ground.
A flutter of excitement bubbled in Yermakova’s stomach at the thought of successfully delivering the general to Putin.
It will show that I am faithful.
That I can get things done.
Surely, her success would overshadow the blunders of the last few days. Yes, Post 866 would be destroyed, but she could find another role once she was a member of the siloviki.
Still daydreaming about her future, Yermakova looked up from her tablet and jumped in surprise at the person standing in front of her.
“Artur!”
The scientist stood in the middle of the hallway, his posture rigid.
Yermakova cocked her head. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Artur reached into his lab coat, pulled out a clump of letters, and held them out for Yermakova to see.
“Did you know?”
“Did I know what?” Yermakova asked, feeling that early bubbling of excitement suddenly sour in her stomach. She looked down at the letters in his hand. “Artur, I had nothing to do with that. Minister Antonovich was the one forging the letters, not me—”
“But you knew they were fakes!” Artur’s free hand flew from his waistband and suddenly there was a pistol pressed to Yermakova’s forehead.
Yermakova’s hand instinctually went to her earpiece that linked her to the guards. But Artur beat her to the punch and stripped her of the device, before pushing her against the door of the armory.
His pistol still pressed to her forehead, Artur’s eyes went to the chain around her neck. “Give it to me.”
“Give… give you what?”
“The key.”
“I… I don’t know what you’re—”
Artur’s hand flew to the key dangling around Yermakova’s neck and ripped it free of its chain. Yermakova tried to snatch it back but Artur pushed her hard against the door.
“You can’t—”
“I can’t what?” Artur demanded. “You think I don’t know what this key is for? You think I don’t know about EL-5 and the green door? The R-9 Desna warhead rigged below the facility?”
Yermakova felt her eyes widen in surprise. “Comrade, wait—”
“I will no longer be your prisoner.”
A syringe materialized in Artur’s hand. Before Yermakova could object, he bit off the safety cap and stabbed the syringe into her neck.
Chapter 71
POST 866
TORTURE ROOM
CASSIE LOOKED DOWN at the bloody nub where her finger had been and felt like she was going to faint.
Her sister’s screams had stopped just seconds before when General Sokolov had substituted the meat cleaver for a rubber truncheon and beat Emily until she had passed out.
F
rankly, Cassie didn’t know how much longer she herself could stay awake. Her mind felt like it was on the verge of giving out. One of Sokolov’s men moved forward with a hot iron and cauterized the wound on her hand, causing Cassie to scream from the agony and the smell of burning flesh.
Sokolov now turned on her father, beating him with the rubber truncheon until one well-placed blow collided with his jaw and he went limp.
Let it end, Cassie thought as she felt herself slipping. Please just let this end.
“Cassie,” Paul Brady said next to her, “stay with us.”
She was so exhausted, it sounded like the former SEAL was a thousand miles away. She lolled her head in the direction of Brady and Marko next to her and caught movement behind them.
Through the bulletproof window embedded in the door of the round white-tiled room, Cassie could faintly make out a series of black helmets and reflective visors peering in from the hallway.
Sokolov’s Vympels, who held positions around the entirety of the room, had their eyes on their boss and hadn’t seemed to notice.
Cassie squinted at the door, trying to figure out what was going on, when the helmets and visors suddenly disappeared.
“Brady, something is—” But Cassie couldn’t get it out, because a resounding BOOM cut over her voice, and the door to the room was blown inward.
Sokolov’s men instinctually went for their combat knives as something was thrown through the smoke-filled doorway. It clattered under Cassie’s chair and stopped before the general’s feet.
Cassie recognized the grenadelike object a tenth of a second before it detonated and the room suddenly disappeared in an explosion of deafening sulfuric whiteness.
For a while, there was nothing.
As the seconds ticked by, Cassie struggled to move. Struggled to regain even one of her senses—
Then, something registered—
A faint staccato broke through her delirium. It pulsed, and grew louder, then her vision came back online.
Dozens of Yermakova’s black-clad guards swarmed into the room, firing live rounds from assault rifles. Cassie watched in disbelief as Sokolov’s dazed soldiers were cut down one by one.
Cassie clamped her eyes shut, waiting for the bullet that would end her life.
But it never came.
When the gunfire stopped ten seconds later, someone was whimpering to her left.
Cassie allowed one of her eyes to open and she saw General Sokolov and his assistant huddled below the metal table containing the torture devices. Having taken the brunt of the stun grenade’s blast, the general bled from his nose and looked confused. His assistant, on the other hand, continued his whimpering and in a frightful, high-pitched voice, began pleading with Yermakova’s guards in Russian.
The largest of the guards stood before the metal table and pressed a hand to his earpiece under his black helmet.
Cassie took in her father, her sister, then Marko and Brady. Her father and sister were still unconscious and luckily untouched by the bullets. Marko and Brady blinked at her.
“What… what’s going on?” Brady groaned, as Cassie’s attention went back to the large guard standing before the metal desk. The guard had lowered his hand from his earpiece and was barking orders to the other guards.
Immediately, four of the guards pulled General Sokolov and his assistant from below the table and dragged them to the middle of the room. Cassie saw that Sokolov’s nose continued to bleed heavily as his eyes focused and settled on her. He muttered something unintelligible under his breath as his hands were wrenched behind his back and zip-tied.
His assistant was forced down on his knees next to the general. His body shook like a leaf.
The large guard stood behind the assistant, raised his pistol, and fired into the back of the assistant’s head.
Cassie was too far gone to flinch at the noise. Too overwhelmed and exhausted to notice that her father was being lowered by the guards from his position in the air. And too broken to realize that the cables holding her to her chair had been cut.
“He’s doing it!” she heard Marko say. “The crazy scientist is helping us!”
Strong hands helped Cassie to her feet. She looked around the room, her bare feet fighting for purchase on the blood-soaked floor.
General Sokolov, Brady, and Marko were being led out of the room.
Another group of guards carried Emily and her father.
Cassie took a step forward to follow, but lost her balance. She was caught by two guards, who stood her upright.
Fighting to stay on her feet, she staggered out of the room and into the hallway.
She hadn’t made it twenty steps when the lights suddenly dimmed, and an unfamiliar alarm shrieked through the facility.
The alarm blared, once, twice.
Then a woman’s voice cut over the alarm and in Russian, said:
“EL-5 initsiirovan. Dvadtsat’ minut do detonatsii.”
* * *
WHITE HOUSE
SITUATION ROOM
The large screen in the Situation Room showing Gale’s POV suddenly went dark as Gale’s eyes closed and he lost consciousness.
Within thirty seconds, two loud explosions consumed the audio then an eruption of gunfire rippled through the feed.
“Can someone explain to me what I’m hearing?” asked President McClintock.
“I don’t know, Mr. President,” replied Carter.
“Commander Spear,” the president asked. “What is the SEALs’ ETA?”
“Eight minutes, Mr. President.”
The room went quiet as faint voices, some in Russian, some in English, could be heard over the feed. Someone was whimpering, pleading, then a sharp gunshot echoed through the room.
“He’s doing it!” an accented voice said in English. “The crazy scientist is helping us!”
Carter shot a confused look at McGavran, who looked just as puzzled.
There was a scuffle of boots, the moving of chairs over the audio, and then two shrill bleats of an alarm sounded, followed by a woman’s voice saying something in Russian.
“What did that say?” asked DNI Nagle.
Carter blinked, not registering the voice.
“It said that EL-5 was initiated,” McGavran piped up. “Twenty minutes until detonation.”
“They’re blowing the place up,” Carter said.
Chapter 72
POST 866
CONTROL ROOM
THE INJECTION OF Devil’s Breath into Yermakova’s bloodstream put her into a near zombielike state. Her face drooped and her shoulders slumped over. The injection was meant to make the GRU captain completely submissive to Artur’s orders, but Yermakova was doing her best to fight the drug.
In the minutes since leaving the armory, Artur instructed Yermakova to escort him to the control room. He studied her reaction as her body twitched and jerked in protest of the Devil’s Breath, but she had reluctantly succumbed to his orders.
When they had arrived at the control room, Artur was stunned to find the place completely devoid of its GRU technicians. He was even more surprised to learn that Yermakova had previously ordered all GRU personnel to be put into lockdown in their residences.
“The guards leaving the armory, where did you send them?” Artur asked.
Yermakova’s mouth twisted, fighting to stay mute, but she spit out, “Down to the white-tiled room to detain General Sokolov and eliminate his men.”
“Detain Sokolov? Why?”
“It was my orders.”
“Orders from whom?”
“President Putin.”
Artur hadn’t expected that answer and inspected Yermakova’s face for any signs of deception. When he found none, he slid over to one of the workstations and turned on the video feed from the white-tiled room. He watched in real time as the door was blown off its hinges by the black-clad guards. Watched as a flash grenade was thrown inside and detonated. The video feed cut out abruptly, then returned, showing Sokolov’s men bein
g gunned down. As the violence abated, Artur noticed Sokolov and his assistant huddling under the metal table.
Artur suddenly had an idea. He took Yermakova’s earpiece from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Tell the guards to dispose of the general’s assistant. After that, tell them to bring all the prisoners and General Sokolov to the control room, unharmed.”
Yermakova’s face jolted again in protest. Artur grabbed her by the neck and repeated his order more forcefully.
Relenting, Yermakova inserted the device into her ear and began relaying Artur’s orders. The scientist used that time to walk to the west wall of the control room and stopped at the green door. Taking the key that had hung around Yermakova’s neck, he unlocked and opened the door to find a cement room the size of a broom closet. On the wall opposite him, a red box was welded into the concrete. The red box housed a keyhole and a simple black keypad.
Artur called for Yermakova to come into the room.
Holding the key, he asked, “Did the president order you to initiate EL-5 and bring Sokolov to Moscow?”
“To Vladivostok,” Yermakova said.
That was why all the GRU technicians were locked in their residences. Yermakova needed them out of the way so she could carry out the president’s orders.
The president will get his wish. Well, sort of, Artur thought. Inserting the key into the red box, he said, “Enter the code to initiate EL-5.”
Yermakova’s hands shook as she punched in a series of numbers on the keypad and then turned the key.
At once, the lights in the facility dimmed and a high-pitched alarm blared twice. Then, a woman’s voice cut over the facility’s intercom:
“EL-5 initsiirovan. Dvadtsat’ minut do detonatsii.”
Artur couldn’t help but smile.
So far, his plan was working much better than expected.
* * *
KAMCHATKA PENINSULA
UH-70 HELICOPTER
Commander Cafferty pressed his earpiece deep into his ear and focused on Commander Spear’s update coming over the SATCOM frequency.
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