Rise of the Enemy (23 page)

I didn’t relax my grip. But I wasn’t going to continue dislocating his fingers. Yet.

‘Project Ruby,’ I said. ‘Tell me about it. That’s what started all of this off. Tell me why my life has been ruined for that.’

‘Logan, you can’t seriously be listening to this guy,’ Mary interjected. ‘We can’t just sit around and chat. This guy wants us dead! We very nearly were. He doesn’t deserve anything more than the others got.’

She certainly seemed to have changed her tune. Now
her life was at stake she was seeing the world through a very different lens. But she was half-right. Schuster didn’t deserve any better than the others. No doubt about that. And I wasn’t going to let him off that fact. But everything he’d said rang true. Chris was a doer. He’d had his orders and he’d been trying to carry them out. This guy was something else. He was a decision-maker. I had to give him a shot. He’d get what was coming to him sooner or later. But I had to at least hear what he had to say.

‘Go on then,’ I said to Schuster, standing up off him. ‘Talk.’

As I got off him he immediately grabbed hold of his stricken finger. His face was creased, sweat droplets covering his brow. But he didn’t moan or scream or otherwise make a fuss. He may not have been physically up to much but he was a tough cookie all right.

After composing himself for a few moments Schuster gave a smug smile and Mary tutted loudly. I sat back down on one of the chairs by the table and Mary took a seat next to me.

‘Project Ruby,’ Schuster said, a smirk on his face. ‘Well, I guess it does seem like the best place to begin.’

‘I can let you in on a little secret,’ Schuster said, loving every minute. Despite the pain he must have been in he obviously couldn’t wait to further rub my face in the mess that he’d created. ‘The thing is, everything you were told about Project Ruby by Mackie and the JIA was true.’

Schuster paused as if waiting for a response from me. He would have to wait a long time. I wanted to hear what he had to say but I wasn’t going to join in with his games.

‘You see, you really did manage to steal that information from RTK. That was quite a coup. The Russians had even known you were coming and you still managed to get away with it.’

His words were sinking in. I felt relief – it hadn’t been a setup from the start; Mackie hadn’t sent me there to die – but also pain. Because it confirmed that somewhere along the line we’d both been betrayed. And Mackie had wound up dead.

‘We’d been keeping a close eye on you and that Russian agent friend of yours. We were rooting for you and you didn’t disappoint. Chris had already been brought into the fold by then and was relaying information back to me about your progress. When we realised you’d been snatched, we all felt for you. We really did.’

‘Oh, I’m sure it hit you really hard,’ I said.

‘Logan, we don’t have to listen to this,’ Mary said, getting more agitated. ‘How can you listen to a word this man has to say? He’s a liar. He tried to have you killed!’

‘Carry on,’ I said to Schuster, ignoring Mary’s protests.

She huffed again, stood up and paced across the cabin.

‘The Russians were quite understandably pissed about what you’d done,’ Schuster said, looking at me with something akin to admiration. ‘That Lena, I’ve heard all about her. She’s quite a piece of work. Not the sort of person you want to get on the wrong side of. She can be quite vengeful, as I’m sure you’ve already learnt for yourself.’

You don’t know the half of it, I thought, but said nothing.

‘But it wasn’t long before the playing field changed.’

Schuster paused, as if for dramatic effect. This time I couldn’t help myself.

‘Changed how?’ I said.

‘Logan. Don’t let him do this to you,’ Mary pleaded.

She was still walking back and forth between the window and the door. I looked up at her but ignored her plea.

‘Changed how?’ I said again to Schuster.

‘Well, we found out that the Russians had something we wanted. “We” being my country. Something that changed the landscape so to speak. Once we knew that, we had to figure out a plan of how to get what we wanted.’

‘You’re going to have to just spit it out, Schuster. Enough of the games now.’

‘Oh. Did Mary not fill you in on the rest, then?’ Schuster said, the grin on his face widening as he looked over at Mary.

She stopped pacing and turned to him. Her face was contorted and angry. She turned her gaze to me.

‘Really? So Carl didn’t know, then?’ Schuster said.

‘I didn’t know what? Mary?’

‘You bastard!’ Mary said to Schuster through clenched teeth. ‘Don’t you dare turn this onto me!’

She strode up to him and slapped him in the face, hard. The ferocity of the slap took both Schuster and me by surprise and Schuster needed a few moments to compose himself.

‘Don’t you
ever
do that again,’ Schuster spat. ‘You stupid bitch.’

Mary screamed and threw herself towards him. I was up and out of my seat, grabbing hold of her from behind, before she got the chance to reach Schuster again. She wriggled and writhed, her arms flailing. She was screaming with rage. But I held her firmly and dragged her away from Schuster, who had sunk low into his seat, trying to get away from her.

Mary stopped fighting and I let her go. She shrugged me off and stormed back over to the window. She was shaking all over with fury.

‘Tell me,’ I said to Schuster, who was looking just a little less brave than he had before.

‘We made contact with the Russians not long after you were taken,’ Schuster said, quickly falling back into his role of story-teller. ‘Chris and Mary were brought together to negotiate with them.’

I looked over at Mary. She was turned away from me, her head bowed. I didn’t like where this was going. And I could see now why she didn’t want this brought up.

‘I didn’t know Chris was CIA, Logan,’ Mary said, meek as a mouse. ‘Everything I’ve told you was the truth.’

‘Ah, but you clearly haven’t told him
everything
?’ Schuster said. ‘Like I said, the Russians had something we wanted. We went in to negotiate.’

‘You tried to sell me out?’ I said, directing my question at Mary. ‘You tried to give me up? For what?’

My thoughts took me back to that room. Lena and the conversations we’d had. She’d told me that Mackie had sent me to Russia to die. She’d played with words to suit her own needs. But in the end she’d been right. Nobody had been sent to save me. They’d been sent there to negotiate with my life.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Mary said, turning to face me.

‘Then how was it?’

‘It’s hard to explain. I know you think I’m too new to this to really understand, but I knew Mackie. He didn’t want to give you up. You have to believe that.’

‘But sometimes we don’t get what we want,’ Schuster said. ‘Mackie was reluctant, sure. But in the end he didn’t have an option. He doesn’t get the final say in these things.’

‘So if it wasn’t Mackie then who sold me out? You?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Damn right it does.’

‘Maybe you’ll figure that one out yourself. I’m not going to lay a death trap for someone else.’

I was finding it hard to process all of the information being thrown at me. My mind was a blur. Clearly I’d been lied to. By Mackie. By Mary. For three months I thought I’d been left for dead. I didn’t know why. They’d told me they couldn’t find me. Then they’d acted like I’d been turned. But all the while they’d been negotiating with the Russians.

Schuster didn’t need to name the person who’d decided to sell me out. I already had a pretty good idea whom it might have been. The link between the CIA and the JIA. Jay Lindegaard. He was a member of the JIA committee overseeing all of our operations. A long-time CIA agent. We’d crossed paths in the past. And it had never been friendly. On my last mission, to rescue Frank Modena, he’d tried to get me thrown off the case. When Mackie had refused, he’d sent a
couple of heavies out after me, and it was only through a bit of luck that I got away unscathed. I could well imagine that given a chance he’d be all too happy to give me up for good.

But that didn’t answer the whole question. What was worth bargaining my life for?

‘So what was the deal?’

Schuster shrugged. ‘Mary and Chris offered to leave you to the Russians in exchange for what we wanted.’

‘You’ve got to believe that Mackie didn’t want it,’ Mary said. ‘He would have carried on trying to get you out. And when we knew you’d escaped, everything changed. He really did want you back. We just didn’t know why the Russians had let you go.’

‘No, Mary,’ Schuster said. ‘
You
didn’t know why. But I did. They let you escape, Logan, because we’d brokered a new deal.’

‘Mackie,’ I said.

‘Exactly. Offering you to the Russians was like trying to sell a watch to a watchmaker. It was a non-starter. They already had you and what we wanted was just too valuable. They knew it and we knew it.’

I could feel the anger boiling up inside me. So many lies, so many betrayals. I found it hard to fathom out what was real and what wasn’t. What I did know was that I was nothing more than a pawn in all this. And in the end, Mackie had been too.

‘So you sold out Mackie instead,’ I said.

‘It was what they wanted,’ Schuster said, shrugging as though it was nothing to have set up a man’s death. ‘There was a lot of history between him and the Russians. They have very long memories it seems.’

The words were playing around in my head as I tried to make sense of what was happening. But I could find no way
to look at the mess that didn’t simply leave a bad taste. In the end, everyone had deserted me. Even Mackie. Who’d then been betrayed himself.

Maybe he’d had it coming.

Yet I still felt for him. And, in a way, felt responsible for his death. I had, after all, been used by the Russians to ensnare him.

‘What was it?’ I said to Schuster. ‘What did the Russians have that was so valuable to you that you bargained with my life? With Mackie’s?’

And it was abundantly clear Schuster had been waiting for this part. Despite the situation, that smile returned. A smirk that spoke a thousand words.

‘They know where Angela Grainger is,’ he said. ‘We negotiated Mackie’s death because the Russians have been hiding Angela Grainger. And now that Mackie is dead, they’re going to give her up. Very soon, she’ll be dead too.’

People talk about being dumbstruck. About something happening that literally takes your breath away. Knocks you off your feet. When I heard Angela’s name coming from Schuster’s lips, my legs suddenly turned to jelly. I couldn’t stay standing. I back-stepped away from Schuster and slouched down on one of the chairs, his words reverberating in my mind.

When Grainger had gone on the run, I’d vowed that I would find her. I’d always been torn in my mind, though, as to what I’d do when I eventually achieved that aim. Our affair had been fleeting but it had been strong. Unlike anything else I’d ever experienced. I loved her. At least I had no doubt in my mind that I could have loved her. But she’d also brought death and destruction to innocent people through her scheme of revenge. I wasn’t sure I could ever let that go. She’d betrayed my trust, like so many others now had. And yet I still clung on to the good that I’d seen in her.

There had been so little time for me to devote to finding her since her escape. I’d been placed on the assignment to infiltrate RTK not long after she’d disappeared. That had soon become all-consuming. I’d kept my ears close to the ground, had people keeping me abreast of anything at all that could help locate her. But she’d simply vanished.

The Americans had immediately placed her on their public most-wanted list. She was a fugitive, right up there with the biggest terrorists and murderers. I’d felt sorry for her, seeing her name being tarnished and dragged through the mud like that. She’d been wrong to do what she’d done, of course. But she was a good person who’d got herself mixed up in something she couldn’t control. After everything, I still couldn’t help but believe that.

To hear that the Russians had been hiding her was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, I felt relief to finally know where she was. But I also knew exactly why the Russians would have been keeping her safe. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. It’s an ancient Chinese proverb. Never has a truer word been spoken.

I doubted the Russians’ intentions towards Grainger had ever been noble. They’d simply seen her as a bargaining chip. They knew sooner or later they’d be able to use her to their advantage. In the end that’s what she’d become. Nothing more than a means to allow them to get what they wanted. They knew the Americans would come looking for her and they’d exploited it. I was a little surprised that Angela hadn’t seen that coming. Maybe she had but felt she had no other option.

Now here I was with the CIA. They were ready to close out their deal. They’d come to Russia to kill Grainger. And in the process they’d had Mackie killed and had been more than happy to leave me to my death.

Something inside me snapped. I jumped out of my seat and launched myself at Schuster. Whatever he had to say, Mary was right. He didn’t deserve any better. I balled my right fist and slammed it into his side, trying to punch right through him. He doubled over in pain, breathless. I pulled back my fist and hit him again in the same spot, not giving him a chance to recover.

My mind felt foggy. I wasn’t in control. An inner rage was trying to get out. I wasn’t sure that I could control it any more. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to hurt him.

I wanted to kill him.

I couldn’t let it end like this. He had more to say. And I needed to hear it. But I hit him again and again and again. He wasn’t putting up a fight. He couldn’t. The beating was too ferocious, too quick. Too severe.

In the end I somehow found the strength to stop. Standing off him, I looked down at Schuster’s crumpled figure and then over at Mary. I was huffing, my chest heaving.

‘You shouldn’t have stopped,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t deserve anything better.’

Schuster somehow managed to pull himself upright. He looked at me. His face was contorted and creased from the pain he was in. He was cradling his midriff. Much of the bravado and confidence had been wiped from his face. The attack had at least shown him who really had control of the situation, even if he did still hold the answers I craved.

‘Where is Angela?’ I said.

‘Moscow,’ Schuster wheezed. ‘That’s why I’m on this train.’

No shit, Sherlock.

‘Where in Moscow?’ I said.

‘Do you really think I’d tell you that, even if I knew?’

‘So you still don’t know,’ I said, a statement rather than a question.

‘Everything’s in place for us to find her,’ Schuster said. ‘It’s only a matter of time. There really isn’t anything you can do to stop us now.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that.’

‘Confidence will only get you so far, Logan. You need to learn when to walk away. You had a chance. I don’t know why you didn’t take it.’

‘I’ve got nowhere left to go. Why did you try to have me killed? Mary too?’

‘We were tracking Mary, hoping she’d lead us to you. When we realised you were both on the train, we thought you’d figured out what was happening. You’re a threat to this, no doubt. But we were wrong. You two really didn’t have the foggiest what was going on. You only know now because I decided to tell you.’

‘Then
why
did you tell us?’ I said.

‘Why not? Like I said, there’s nothing you can do now. If you’d already known what was going on then maybe things would have gone down differently. We thought you might have been a few steps ahead. But you weren’t. You didn’t know anything. And it’s too late for you now. Everyone wants you dead, Logan. The CIA, the JIA, the FSB. You’ve got nowhere left to turn. It’s only a matter of time before someone catches up with you.’

Schuster was still relishing every second of tormenting me. I felt the urge to go at him again. To wipe the smirk off his face permanently. But that would leave me with nothing. As long as Schuster was alive and I was with him, there was a chance I could still get to the end of this and find Grainger. I had to. I’d vowed to myself after the last time I’d seen her, when she’d shot me and gone on the run, that I’d never stop looking for her. And I wanted to be the one to find her. I couldn’t let the CIA or anyone else get to her before me. It had to be me.

I had to save her.

We waited in near silence after that. Schuster had done his talking. And I had nothing left to say to him. Mary sat, staring out of the window. I felt betrayal at her having not revealed to me everything she’d known. But in the end I knew one thing – she’d been loyal to Mackie. To the JIA.
I didn’t fully trust her but I believed that she was more on my side than anyone else. And she could still help me.

It was light outside again when an announcement came across on the tannoy. We would be arriving at Yaroslavsky station in Moscow in five minutes.

Not long after, the train jolted as the brakes were applied and we started to slow down.

‘Who’s meeting you here?’ I said to Schuster. I wanted to know what we’d be walking into when we got off the train.

‘No-one,’ Schuster said. ‘I had company but you’ve already taken care of them.’

He indicated the two men who lay heaped on the floor by the door. I didn’t believe him. We’d have to remain alert as we got off the train, that was for sure.

‘You’ve come here for a reason,’ I said. ‘I don’t think you know where Grainger is yet. Otherwise you’d have just sent a single person in to finish her off. You brought a whole team with you. So who are you meeting and where?’

‘I told you there were some things I would tell you and other things I wouldn’t. Well, I’m sorry but I’m standing by that.’

Mary took out the gun that she’d stashed in her jacket and jabbed it towards Schuster.

‘Then I guess you’ll just have to come with us,’ she said. ‘You’re on your own now. If you want this finished then sooner or later you’ll have to make the move you came to Moscow for. Stand up.’

Schuster stood awkwardly, still holding his arms around his midriff. He was in a lot of pain. I’d probably broken some ribs, maybe even damaged a kidney. But he was doing his best to fight through it. He had something at stake here too after all. Mary stepped over to him and prodded the gun into his lower back, ushering him towards the door.

‘Can I at least get my coat?’ he said.

I picked it up off the hook on the wall next to the door and checked through the pockets. I found a phone but no weapons. There wasn’t the time to sit and look through what was on the phone. I placed it on the coffee table, then flung the coat at him.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘What about those two?’

‘We leave them there,’ I said, looking down at the two men. One of them had come around and Mary had gagged him and tied him to the bed. The other, the one I’d hit, was still in a crumpled heap on the floor. He was breathing, though. ‘Someone will find them sooner or later.’

I opened the door and stepped back to allow Schuster and Mary out. She walked close to him, shielding the view of the gun that stayed pressed up against his back. The train was just pulling to a stop when we reached the carriage exit. I waited for the lock to release, then opened the door.

Built in the early 1900s in a neo-Russian style, the grand terminal building of Yaroslavsky station was still considered to be one of the most distinguished architectural monuments in Russia with its Kremlin-esque towers. Unusually for a station of its size, though, the fifteen parallel platforms were all completely open to the elements. The cold air immediately hit me as I stepped off the train onto the platform and I huddled my head down into the collar of my coat. Two days in the warmth of the train had softened me.

I took a few moments to eyeball the area. I saw no sign of any welcome party for Schuster but I knew we’d have to keep on the lookout. Someone out there would be waiting for him. Looking back up to the train, I signalled to Mary and she nudged Schuster in the back. They both stepped out onto the platform. Mary couldn’t stop herself shivering as the cold air hit her.

‘You lead the way,’ I said to Schuster.

‘To where?’ he said, feigning bemusement.

‘To wherever your planned rendezvous is,’ I said. ‘It’s quite clear that’s what’s happening here. You had your chums to keep you company, keep you safe. Now you’ve got us. Take us to wherever you’re supposed to be and there might still be a chance for you to walk away from this alive.’

‘I’m not going to do that,’ Schuster said.

‘Then you’re not going to get to Grainger, are you?’ I said.

‘How could I trust you to let me go?’ Schuster said. ‘After everything I’ve already told you. How can you even possibly expect me to believe that you’d let me live?’

‘It’s the only chance you’ve got.’

‘And then what?’

‘I haven’t got that far yet.’

‘You might think you can take on the world, Logan. But you’re wrong.’

‘You let me worry about that. Off you go now.’

Mary jabbed the gun again at Schuster.

‘Will you stop doing that!’ he shouted, pulling away from her and turning around. ‘I know you’re both armed. It doesn’t really make a difference if you keep sticking it in me!’

I stood and stared at Schuster. He stared back. I’m not sure what changed in his mind but eventually he relented.

‘Come on, it’s this way,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

He turned and started to march off, a renewed show of strength coming over him. We followed two yards behind him towards the terminal building. I noticed that Mary still held her gun but had folded her arms, placing the weapon just inside her coat to hide it from view. My gun was in my right hand, inside my coat pocket. We had to be ready and alert should things turn bad.

And I knew that inevitably they would.

As we walked through the busy terminal I nervously glanced over to a group of three policemen standing watching the station. Had a search party been organised for me following the multiple incidents in Omsk? I willed them not to look at me, and sighed in relief as we walked out of the station without a single glance in my direction as we passed.

Komsomolskaya Square, which we walked out into, is one of the busiest intersections in Moscow, home to three of Moscow’s nine main railway stations. We bustled past tourists, business people and townsfolk, through the square and into the inner hub of Moscow. As we carried on, none of us speaking, the wide streets and grand buildings soon petered out into narrower, windier alleys with low-rise apartments and offices.

The throngs of people also died down as we walked, and before long the streets around us were more or less deserted. I’d spent time in Moscow before, and although I was sure I could retrace my steps to familiar ground, I didn’t know the grimy back alleys that we were walking down at all. More than once Mary and I glanced at each other, each of us becoming increasingly anxious over where we were being led.

‘Where are we going?’ Mary asked, the nerves in her voice unmistakable.

‘Not far now,’ Schuster said, not turning as he carried on his march.

I looked over and noticed that Mary had taken her gun out from under her coat. She held it down by her side, in open view. She looked up at me and gave me a questioning look, but I didn’t say anything and turned my attention back to Schuster. I didn’t trust him. Not at all. But at least he was taking us somewhere. Possibly straight into an ambush, but at least we were still moving forward.

Decrepit buildings were tightly packed on both sides of us. As we approached an opening on the left, I got myself ready to peer down it. Not just to look for trouble, but to try to find anything to confirm my bearings. But at the last second, Schuster darted to his left and headed into the opening at pace.

Mary and I both instinctively reached up with our weapons. I had to hold my arm out to stop Mary bounding ahead after Schuster. We had to keep our heads.

We rounded the corner slowly, guns drawn. Schuster was standing five yards off from us. He’d stopped and was turned, facing us. His face placid, no sign of emotion. No sign of that devilish grin.

We walked out into a small square. Four exits were arranged in a neat crossroads configuration. But the square was just a cross-section of the back ends of grotty buildings. In front of us the alley carried on into the distance, ending abruptly a good couple of hundred yards away where an apartment tower block stood. Industrial-sized bins lined three of the four sides of the square, their contents over-spilling. The stench of rotten food and chemicals was overpowering even in the sub-zero air.