Devil's Fortress, page 28
the dacha, outside moscow
that evening
Under the light of a shaded lamp, Flynn looked around a circle of intent, determined faces. He opted to be blunt. These people were all professionals. They were also trusted comrades and friends—and in Laura Van Horn’s case, much more. They deserved the truth exactly as he saw it, not the kind of smoothly packaged, optimistic BS some staff weenies used to boost the morale of frontline troops assigned to hazardous duty.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat this,” he began. “There is no margin for error on this mission. If anything major goes wrong, we’re probably all dead.”
Heads nodded. They’d all read Cooke’s report on the security setup at the Mercury City Tower, and the details of what Flynn and Van Horn had learned about Voronin’s own defenses while interrogating Vasily Kondakov.
“Here’s the deal,” Flynn continued. “Even if everything goes according to plan, NEMESIS will still be risky as hell for all of us. We’ll have to be at the top of our game—ready to go in hard and fast.” He met their eyes. “And when things go south, as they surely will, each of us must be ready to act without hesitation. To do whatever it takes to accomplish this mission. There’s no use in trying to play it safe. We won’t get another crack at Voronin. Not in time to matter. So this is all-or-nothing.”
Hynes raised a hand. “Uh, sir?”
Flynn nodded. “Go ahead, Cole. You’ve got a question?”
“Not exactly,” Hynes said. “More of a comment. See, as pre-game pep talks go, I thought you might want to know that yours kind of sucks. Big-time. No disrespect intended, of course.”
That triggered grins and half-stifled snorts of laughter from around the table.
“He’s right, you know,” Van Horn said gently to Flynn. She patted his hand. “Maybe in the future when we do something batshit crazy like this, you should think about leading with the positive. Say something like, ‘Hey, we might not die. If we get incredibly lucky, that is.’ Something along those lines.”
Flynn couldn’t hide his own answering grin. “Et tu, Laura?” he asked in a hurt tone. Then he turned to Hynes. “Thanks for the constructive criticism, Cole. I’ll do my best to keep it in mind for the next time. Assuming, of course, that there will be a next time.”
“Always glad to help out, sir,” the other man told him.
With the tension broken slightly, Flynn turned to the details of their plan. “Okay, what’s the best way to clear a defended building?” he asked.
To his surprise, Wade Vucovich spoke up first. Tall and almost gangly, he was usually the quietest one in the group. “From the top down, sir,” he said. “At least that’s what they taught us Joes in urban combat training.”
Flynn nodded. “Bingo. And the training and doctrine are right in this case. So that’s exactly how we’re going to work NEMESIS.”
Cooke eyed him quizzically. “Please tell me that you’re not planning for us to helicopter to the top of that damn skyscraper and then rappel down about four hundred fricking feet to where Voronin and his goons have their offices?” His soft Virginia drawl lengthened. “I’ve got a lot of hidden talents, but playing Spiderman ain’t one of them.”
“I thought about it,” Flynn admitted and then shrugged. “But even I am not that loco.”
“Could have fooled me,” Van Horn murmured.
He flashed her a quick half-smile and then moved on. “No mountaineering is required. Instead, we’re taking exactly the opposite approach.” Ignoring, for the moment, the puzzled looks this statement prompted, he shifted his gaze back to Cooke. “And, as it happens, you’ve got the starring role, Shannon.”
The other man folded his arms and leaned back with a sardonic look. “Oh, joy. Should I be flattered? Or just scared shitless?”
“Both, probably,” Flynn replied. He glanced around the table with a serious expression. “Now, listen up, folks, because here’s how this is going to work―” When he finished explaining the tactics they would employ and the timing involved, he sat back. “Any questions? Any comments?”
There was a long moment of silence while the other team members digested what they’d just been told. Finally, Hynes whistled softly and shook his head. He stared across the table at Flynn with an almost admiring look. “Hell, sir. You weren’t kidding about how dicey this plan is, were you?”
“Nope. I meant every single word,” Flynn said softly. He studied the other man. “So, Cole? Are you in? Or out?” Ordinarily, at this stage of a mission, he wouldn’t have even dreamed of offering anyone a chance to bail out. But now that they were all face to face with the cold, hard reality of what they were being asked to try, he found he couldn’t do anything else but give them the option. He thought wryly that, if he’d had a sword, he could have drawn a line in the dirt outside and dared them to step across it, like Colonel William Barrett Travis did at the Alamo.
Hynes shrugged. “Oh, I’m in, sir. Win or lose, this will be one heck of a ride.” One by one, Shannon Cooke, Tadeusz Kossak, and Wade Vucovich nodded solemnly in agreement.
Flynn breathed out, feeling both heartened and uneasy in the same moment. They were fully committed now. NEMESIS would kick off early the next morning—and there was no going back once it did.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
khamovniki district, across the moskva river from gorky park, moscow
the next morning
Several late-model cars, a mix of Ladas, Hyundais, and Kias, were neatly parked around a tree-lined courtyard. Five- and six-story-high brick and concrete-block apartment buildings rose on all sides, except for a single entrance to the nearest street. Shannon Cooke stood quietly in the cover of the trees. According to what they’d been told, the man he was waiting for was a creature of habit, at least on his home turf. He came fully on alert as a burly, shaven-headed man strolled out of the closest apartment building, smoking a cigarette.
Cooke took in the tattoos visible on the man’s thick neck. That was Anton Saitov, the Raven Syndicate’s new internal security chief, no doubt about it. The hard-eyed man matched the description Kondakov had provided. Those tattoos were souvenirs of his undercover “wet work” inside the neo-Nazi Russian Imperial Movement.
Saitov took a deep drag on his cigarette and then tossed it aside. Blowing out a lungful of pale blue smoke, he moved toward his vehicle, a steel-gray Lada Granta, reaching into his pocket for his car keys.
Cooke stepped out from under the trees. “Anton Sergeevich Saitov,” he called out formally, holding up what would appear from a distance to be a police warrant card. “A moment, please. We have a few questions for you.”
Saitov spun toward him fast. His eyes narrowed. The Russian seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then his attention focused even more intently on the card in Cooke’s hand. With snakelike swiftness, his hand darted inside his jacket pocket and came out holding a 9mm SR-1 Vektor pistol—a type favored by members of the FSB and GRU for close-in fighting. One of their nicknames for the weapon was Gyurza, Viper.
“Khuy tebe! Fuck you!” Saitov snarled. “You’re no cop.” His pistol was already moving into line with Cooke’s chest when there was the sudden cough-pop sound of a suppressed weapon firing. A round red hole appeared in the center of the Russian’s forehead, accompanied by a sudden splatter of blood, brain matter, and shattered skull fragments out the back of his head. Killed instantly, he went down without a sound.
“Well, crap,” Cooke murmured, as he bent over to pull the Vektor from Saitov’s dead hand. “That could have gone better.”
“Not likely,” Nick Flynn said matter-of-factly, from off to the side, still standing under the trees. He detached the magazine of his Lebedev PL-15 pistol and thumbed in another round to replace the one he’d just fired. Then he reinserted the magazine and unscrewed the still-warm suppressor attached to its barrel. “Kondakov warned us this guy Saitov was a paranoid SOB. He was never going to fall for the phony cop routine.”
Cooke shrugged. “Yeah, I guess not.” He shook his head in disbelief. “The bastard sure was fast, though. I thought he had me.”
“Which is why I’m just as glad he’s not going to be around for the rest of this little escapade,” Flynn agreed, sliding his pistol away out of sight as he joined Cooke by the body. Working quickly and efficiently, the two Quartet Directorate agents searched Saitov’s corpse—retrieving both his red restricted access Mercury City Tower key card and his Raven Syndicate photo ID card. With that done, they lugged the dead man over to a dumpster in one corner of the courtyard and heaved him inside out of sight. That way, given reasonable luck, it would be a while before anyone found the body.
Unhurriedly, Flynn and Cooke left the courtyard and went their separate ways. They each had different roles to play in the next phases of this complex, precisely timed plan.
mercury city tower
a short time later
After paying his fare plus a generous tip in cash, Cooke climbed out of the taxi that had brought him to the skyscraper’s front entrance. Carrying a large briefcase, he strode through the bronze-tinted sliding glass doors and headed straight for the security turnstiles. In his fashionable, charcoal gray wool suit and blue silk tie, he looked like every other high-powered corporate executive who had offices in the huge building. While on the move, he dug out Saitov’s red keycard and held it ready. Then, serenely ignoring the armed guards deployed around the enormous lobby, he swiped the card and went through the machine. No alarms rang.
First step down, he thought. But it was a big one. Using the dead Raven Syndicate security chief’s special access card not only got him into the building, it also enabled him to walk straight past the additional screening for explosives and weapons without stopping.
When Cooke arrived at the elevator banks, he avoided the restricted lifts that would have taken him directly to the Raven Syndicate–controlled floors. He figured there was no sense in poking his head directly into the lion’s den. Instead, he summoned a regular passenger elevator, entered the car, and pushed the button for the forty-sixth floor. The doors slid closed, and the high-speed elevator ascended smoothly.
When its doors chimed open, he stepped out into a wide, elegant corridor. After a quick glance up at the nearest building security surveillance camera, he slid Saitov’s key card into a gleaming recycling bin. Then, without further hesitation, he walked purposefully down the hall to the door of the apartment he wanted. It was where he’d delivered his phony package while scouting the Mercury City Tower weeks ago, the one belonging to a man named Povetkin, a wealthy private equity banker. Brusquely, he rang the bell.
The same dour-faced underling he’d met before, the banker’s assistant, answered the door. He showed no sign at all that he recognized Cooke from the earlier visit. That wasn’t a surprise, the Quartet Directorate agent knew. He’d been counting on it. On his first trip to this apartment, Cooke had been wearing a neon red bike helmet and a bright orange reflective vest—the standard attire of a bike messenger. And when dealing with people in uniform—police officers, waiters, store clerks, and the like—most people paid far more attention to the clothes than to the appearance of those wearing them.
Before Povetkin’s assistant could say anything, Cooke flashed Saitov’s stolen Raven Syndicate ID card at him, carefully keeping his forefinger over the dead man’s photograph. “I need to talk to your boss,” he said roughly. “Right away.”
The other man swallowed hard and stepped back, allowing Cooke inside the apartment’s foyer. “Yes, sir,” he said faintly and hurried off to find his employer.
Cooke hid a slight smile. By this time, enough gossip about the Syndicate’s unsavory activities had obviously circulated among the Mercury City Tower’s other tenants to make them all wary of offending Voronin or any of his people. He set his briefcase down on an entry table and opened it.
Shortly afterward, the assistant returned with Povetkin. Both Russians stopped dead in their tracks—staring in shock at the suppressed 9mm pistol Cooke now held aimed squarely in their direction. “My apologies, gentlemen,” he said coolly. “I hate like hell to bother you. But I really need to borrow your place for a little while.”
It took him only moments to secure the two men. Tied up, gagged, and blindfolded, they were tucked away in the relative safety of the master bedroom. Humming to himself, Cooke began dragging furniture away from the center of the apartment’s elaborately decorated living room. So far as he knew, everything in NEMESIS seemed to be running like clockwork.
mercury city tower
main parking garage entrance
a short time later
A large black van turned off the entrance road and pulled up to the barrier. Its passenger side window rolled down, revealing a lean-faced, determined-looking officer wearing the all-black tactical uniform of the Spetsnaz’s Alpha Group—the FSB’s elite anti-terrorist unit. He crooked a finger at the closest building security guard on duty. “You!” His finger pointed downward at the pavement beside his window. “Here!” His mouth tightened. “Now!”
Perplexed, the guard scrambled to obey. “Sir?” he asked in confusion. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a situation,” the Spetsnaz officer said irritably. “That’s all you need to know.” He jabbed his finger at the barrier in front of the van. “Now open this fucking gate and put me in touch with your boss. Understand?”
Hastily, the guard obeyed, stabbing the button to raise the barrier. Then he turned and trotted after the van as it drove down the ramp and into the garage. He had his hand-held radio out and could be heard excitedly asking to speak to the building’s chief of security.
The big black vehicle parked directly in front of one of the elevators. The second it came to a stop, its doors slid open. Following their leader, more black-clad Alpha Group troops jumped out, loaded down with large equipment bags. They all wore ballistic helmets and had black balaclavas pulled up over their noses and mouths. That was common practice among Russia’s elite law enforcement units. It was done to protect their identities from criminals or terrorists who might otherwise retaliate against them or their families.
Impatiently, their officer snatched the radio held out to him by the harried-looking security guard. “Captain Demidov?” he demanded. “This is Major Nikolai Raevsky of Spetsgruppa ‘A.’ I’m on my way up to your operations center now.”
An agitated voice crackled out of the radio. “Look, Major, can you tell me just what the hell is happening and why you’re―”
“I’ll brief you more fully in person,” the officer snapped, cutting the other man off in mid-sentence. “But right now, I will say that you’re facing an extremely serious situation. At least one armed intruder—probably a terrorist—is likely to have breached your security, and there could easily be more.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
mercury city tower sub-levels
that same time
Escorted by the security guard, Major Raevsky and his Spetsnaz troops crowded into the elevator car and rode it up one floor to the second basement level. This was the utilitarian section of the huge building dedicated to its vital mechanical infrastructure: electrical substations, emergency generators, water pumps and storage tanks, and the fiber optic telecommunications and internet cables that connected it to the outside world. It was also the site of the skyscraper’s internal security operations center.
Under blue-tinged lights, this security station resembled a military command post. Computer consoles and wall-sized screens allowed the uniformed guards on duty to monitor feeds from the dozens of surveillance cameras positioned in and around the Mercury City Tower’s seventy-five floors. Keeping track of potentially threatening activity in the building’s more than one hundred and seventy thousand square meters of internal space was an enormous job—one that required a combination of dedicated specialists and sophisticated software to help winnow the flood of information being gathered to something approaching a manageable level.
Followed by his black-clad anti-terrorist commandos, Raevsky marched into the operations center. His eyes roved around the room and settled immediately on the senior man, Iosif Demidov. The security chief wore a captain’s four stars on the shoulder tabs of his short-sleeved blue shirt. A jacket emblazoned with the Mercury City Tower’s corporate logo was slung over the chair at his console. He looked both worried and off-balance at this sudden and wholly unexpected intrusion into what had been a perfectly ordinary morning shift.
“I’m Raevsky. And you must be Demidov,” the Spetsnaz officer said sharply. “We don’t have time to waste on polite bullshit. So let’s consider it all said and move on to what’s crucial. First, how closely do you track everyone entering or exiting through your controlled access points?”
“Very closely,” Demidov assured him. “All key card swipes at the turnstiles and restricted elevators are processed and recorded by our computer system.”
“That’s good news,” Raevsky said with a tight-lipped nod. “Then tell me: Has a man named Saitov entered this building today? Anton Sergeevich Saitov?”
Demidov darted a finger at one of his men. “Pull that information up for the major, Yuri.”
The security officer’s hands flashed across his keyboard. In response, a posed ID photo of Saitov appeared on his display, along with pertinent information about his status and clearance levels. He pointed to alphanumeric lines of text at the bottom of the screen. “Saitov? Yes, his access card registered at the main lobby turnstiles about thirty-five minutes ago.”
Demidov leaned closer to the screen. His eyes scanned Saitov’s details. With a puzzled look, he turned back to Raevsky. “What exactly is this all about, Major? This man Saitov is a high-ranking employee of one of our most important corporate tenants, the Raven Syndicate.” He shrugged. “He’s got complete building access already. He can’t be any kind of threat to our security.”
