Authors: Stephen England
The Russian took a step around him—into the room—his eyes betraying no hint of emotion as he squeezed the trigger of the suppressed Ruger. A small ragged hole appeared just back of the target’s ear and he swayed, his outstretched hand striking the table as he went down.
“Never make a sound you don’t have to,” Vasiliev announced, looking for all the world like a hunter surveying his kill as he stood over the corpse. The Ruger
was
far quieter than even Harry’s submachine gun, but it had been a risk. “Room clear.”
Harry glanced down at the red stain spreading over the fabric of sofa and nodded.
No time to second-guess the decision—even as he stood there, a voice called from out in the hall. “Sasha?”
Vasiliev swore under his breath, dropping to one knee by the corpse, his pistol aimed at the doorway. Waiting.
The man that appeared in the doorway was dressed simply, jeans and a t-shirt. There was a gun on his hip and with the knife in his hand he was peeling an apple.
He saw Vasiliev—saw the gun, his mouth opening in a perfect “O” of surprise. And those were the last things he ever saw.
9:00 P.M.
No signal.
The oligarch stared at his phone in a mixture of astonishment and disgust. The blackout couldn’t possibly have taken down the entire cellphone network, could it?
Maybe it was just
his
phone. Maxim could try to reach Vegas. He picked up the encrypted radio handset on his desk, keying the mike.
Static. Nothing but static. They had never failed him before. A sudden feeling of dread clutched at his throat, punctuated by a muted thud from outside the room.
A body falling.
He pulled open the center drawer of his desk, his gaze falling on the small Walther stashed there.
“Don’t even think it.” Andropov’s head came up, his fingers trembling as his eyes focused in on the masked figure standing in the door of his study. Ice-cold blue eyes staring forth from the holes in a balaclava ski mask, lips curled upward in an inhuman smile.
The Heckler & Koch submachine gun in his hands was aimed at Andropov’s head.
Stall
. Buy time. The oligarch glanced at the dead radio, his foot creeping toward the silent alarm switch. “W-what do you want?”
“Many things,” Harry replied in fluent Russian, centering the iron sights of his UMP-45 between the Russian’s eyes. “Mostly answers.”
Behind him, Vasiliev entered the room, weapon drawn. Five of Andropov’ bodyguards were dead—eight more remained somewhere around the estate.
If their estimate was correct.
“Who paid you to facilitate the assassination of David Lay?”
Harry demanded, circling Andropov like a predatory cat.
“I have no idea what you are talking about.” The oligarch’s voice was too confident—too sure of himself. As if he knew something they didn’t. “You’ll never leave here alive,” he continued. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I rather think we will.” Holding the buttstock of the UMP-45 tight against his shoulder, Harry pulled his phone out of his pocket with his left hand, thrusting it toward Andropov. A picture of a bound and wide-eyed Pyotr filled up the screen. “We have your son.”
To his surprise, Andropov began to chuckle, his shoulders shaking in a paroxysm of laughter. “That bastard.”
Harry exchanged glances with Vasiliev. Somehow, somewhere along the way, they’d made a misstep. And they were losing control of the situation. Andropov took in their look and laughed. “Oh, I’m not disparaging Pyotr—I meant that in the
purest
sense of the word.”
“What are you saying?”
“Pyotr…is not my son.” The oligarch smiled. “A bastard, as I say. His mother…well, she was unfaithful to me. Perhaps you even know how it feels to receive such knowledge? As it happened, Pyotr was two months old when she was killed in a car accident. Brakes failed.”
He was stalling. Harry felt the hairs along the back of his neck prickle with danger. “Get to the point.”
Andropov shrugged. “My point? You don’t have my son—you have a teenager with a penchant for spending my money. I had high hopes for him in those days, and he has done nothing but disappoint. Like his mother.”
A dismissive wave of the hand. “Put a bullet through his head if it pleases you. It is no concern of mine.”
He wasn’t bluffing. Harry could tell that, reading the man’s eyes. All the risks they had undergone—all for nothing. A grave miscalculation.
Fatal?
Before he could even finish the thought, the doors of the study flew open, revealing the man they had identified as Andropov’s security chief and two bodyguards standing there in the opening, SR-2
Veresk
submachine guns trained on he and Vasiliev.
Checkmate
.
9:05 P.M.
San Francisco, California
Everything was quiet, Korsakov thought, watching as two members of his assault team affixed a breaching charge to the door of the safehouse.
Too quiet. He didn’t like the tactical environment—they’d had to dismount from the vehicles two blocks away and move in on foot. Too many things could go wrong, and they’d have no backup. “Do you still have a fix on the tracker?” he asked quietly, keying his earpiece.
“
Da
,” Viktor responded from the SUV. “They’re near the back of the apartment—moving into a room on the far left. Maybe a bedroom?”
Another few moments, and it wouldn’t matter. Everyone in the house would either be dead or in their hands. “Are you in position, Yuri?”
A burst of static, and his second-in-command came on. “We have a clear line of sight on the back door.”
Korsakov caught the signal from the man by the door and moved back, turning his face away from the blast and covering his ear with one hand.
Two outstretched fingers. One…
The shaped charges exploded, their concussive roar shattering the stillness of the night. The door flew inward, dissolved into flying bits of metal and plastic.
Korsakov was on his feet before the noise had even died away, following his team through the breach, weapon drawn. The clock was ticking.
9:05 P.M.
Andropov estate
“This little game is over,” Andropov announced. “Put your weapons on the floor.”
“Not from my perspective,” Harry replied, his voice level. Conversational, even. The UMP-45 in his hands remained aimed at Andropov’s head. “I still hold the trump card.”
“What do you mean?” Came the demand from behind him, the security chief speaking for the first time.
“You can kill me, no doubt about it.” His words were like ice, a cold, unemotional analysis of the situation at hand. “But know this: if you pull that trigger, I will kill Valentin before I die.”
He could feel the man’s gaze flicker from himself to Andropov and back again. Uncertainty. “You’re mad.”
That inhuman smile appeared once more on Harry’s face, stretching at the fabric of the balaclava. “You really want to roll the dice on my mental state? If I kill your boss, you not only lose a job…you lose his protection. How do you think the US government will react once they realize that you helped terrorists enter this country?”
Fear. He could feel the indecision in the security chief. Time to end this, before reinforcements arrived to bolster his courage. His finger caressed the H&K’s trigger, taking up the slack. “Ready to take that chance? Put your guns on the ground…or I put a bullet through your boss’s head. Your choice.”
“
Nyet,
Maxim,” the oligarch exclaimed, his face contorted in fury. “Don’t listen to him, you fool.”
“
Now
,” Harry prompted gently. “Before I lose my patience.”
The man threw his submachine gun on the floor, metal clattering against the wood as he motioned angrily for his companions to do the same.
Harry nodded, circling until he stood behind Andropov, his weapon covering both the oligarch and his disarmed security team.
Alexei favored him with an incredulous smile. “Remind me never to play poker with you,
tovarisch
.”
“I wasn’t bluffing.” He knew what had to be done, but it never got any easier. To take a man’s life in cold blood
…
He might have prayed for forgiveness, but that would have been a sacrilege against a God he had offended more than enough. He might have hesitated, but there was no time for that. The UMP-45 came up, its fire selector flipped to full-automatic.
A look of shock crossed the security chief’s face, his empty hands coming up, as if the gesture would save him.
Harry squeezed the trigger.
9:07 P.M.
San Francisco
Nothing. Korsakov stepped into the opening of the apartment’s main bedroom, the barrel of his Steyr AUG bullpup sweeping the empty space.
“Room clear,” he announced softly, shooting his partner a puzzled look. “Give me an update, Viktor.”
“The tracker hasn’t moved. The back room on the far left from the entry point.”
“That’s where I am. And the room’s clear.”
The boy’s voice began to tremble nervously. “It has to be there. I can pin it down within a five-foot radius, and that’s where it is. I wouldn’t lie to you, you know that.”
“I know,” Korsakov responded, taking a cautious step into the bedroom, his eyes roving for hiding places. The closet?
Motioning for his partner to cover him, he moved in. If it had been an American movie, he might have riddled the doors of the closet with his assault rifle, but his orders were to take Chambers alive.
If at all possible.
A faint metallic
whirring
noise smote Korsakov’s ears—something moving, at his very feet. He jumped back, depressing the AUG’s trigger almost instinctively.
Automatic rifle fire ripped through the air, sending the small object careening toward the wall of the bedroom.
There was no explosion, no return fire. Nothing. Willing his heart rate to return to normal, Korsakov lowered his weapon.
What was
that
?
“
Tovarisch
—are you there?” Viktor’s voice, hushed and nervous.
“
Da, da
. False alarm. What is it?”
“The tracker—it disappeared off my screens, just after you opened fire.”
He took a step forward, examining the twisted metal and plastic that had once been a small vacuum cleaning robot. A hail of bullets had torn apart the brand name—
Roomba
?
Korsakov shook his head.
It couldn’t be
. And yet it was—this was how the tracker had kept moving all over an empty apartment.
They had been played.
9:08 P.M.
Andropov’s estate
Beverly Hills
The room smelled of blood—blood and brimstone, the sulphurous smell of gunpowder burning Harry’s nostrils as he checked the zip-ties around Andropov’s hands and feet. He wasn’t going anywhere. Rising to his feet, Harry moved to the door of the study, motioning to Vasiliev.
On my mark
. The security chief’s lifeless eyes stared accusingly up into his face as he dropped to one knee beside the body, listening.
Voices, low and hushed. Very close. The rest of Andropov’s security team? Hard to tell, but they were odds worth gambling on. A Hollywood superhero might have poked his head around the door and taken a look down the hall, but in the real world that was a fast way to get that head blown off.
Ready?
He signaled, glancing at the former KGB officer. A nod.
Time to roll the dice. Harry pulled a flashbang from the front of his assault vest, pulling the pin and softly tossing the cylinder out onto the plush carpet of the hallway.
One. Two
…
The blinding light of the stun grenade reflected off the study’s windows, an ear-shattering wave of sound rolling through the house. There were few things on earth so disorienting, if you weren’t prepared for it.
Now!
Harry sprang to his feet, the UMP-45 coming up to his shoulder as he entered the hallway, Vasiliev at his right hand. Four men in tactical gear, dazed and disoriented. Blinded by the blast.
The fifth had remained back near the staircase, keeping watch.
No hesitation, no time for mercy. The submachine gun spat fire, the suppressed reports sounding like hammer blows in the narrow confines of the hall, along with the louder crack of Vasiliev’s Grach. The young man by the staircase was the first to die, his weapon clattering to the wood as he crashed through the bannister, falling to the marble floor below.
Three of the assaulters went down, the fourth ran for the stairs as the H&K’s magazine emptied, returning fire as he went.