All out war, p.18
All Out War, page 18
“Yes, yes.” Zakayev clamped his left hand over Yuri’s mouth, twisted his head away from him, and buried the blade in his ear. Yuri convulsed against him and Zakayev pushed him away before he pissed himself.
Thirty seconds later his old friend was dead.
“We all pay what we owe,” Zakayev said, pulling the knife free.
Zakayev nodded, shoved the atlas into his back pocket, grabbed a grenade from the backpack under the couch, and went over to the door. He pulled the pin and jammed it between the crack at the bottom and then moved to the window.
He tossed the bag out of the window and jumped after it. His feet clattered off the Dumpster, and then he was on the street. Zakayev shouldered the bag, checked behind him, and pulled the phone from his pocket.
“Change in plans. The American is here,” he told Gabriel when he answered. “We go tonight, send me some men.”
Chapter 34
Budapest
“Everyone just take it easy,” Demo said. “Everything is cool.”
“You think this is cool?” Johnny asked Steele. “You know what would happen if I slotted you right here, mate?”
“You would have to clean up the mess?”
“Nothing would happen. Not a thing. This is my club, my rules.”
Steele took stock of the situation. Johnny was directly in front of him, a pistol pointed at his stomach, Johnny’s two goons circling to the right, blocking the door to the Russians. He heard Demo moving to the left, saw one of the bodyguards’ eyes tracking him across the room.
Tensions were high, and Steele knew the situation could go to shit in a heartbeat.
It was his cell phone that ended up saving Eric.
A few months ago, Demo had downloaded “Escape” by Rupert Holmes and saved it as his ringtone. Steele had tried everything to turn it off, but his friend had used some kind of password protection that he couldn’t crack.
The phone vibrated in his pocket and then the ringtone kicked in. “If you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain . . .”
“What in the hell is that?” Johnny demanded.
“It’s my girlfriend,” Steele replied.
He held up his hands, palms facing out. “I am not trying to disrespect the gun you have pointed at me, but I haven’t called her in three days and unless you want a serious situation on your hands, I need to answer it.”
“This isn’t serious enough?” Johnny demanded, jabbing the pistol in his direction.
“I am just reaching for my phone,” Steele said, lowering his right hand. “Just my phone.”
“You think this is a fooking joke, do ya?” Johnny demanded, his face getting red.
“Either you are going to kill me, or she is,” Steele said, slowly pulling the phone out of his pocket with two fingers. “Johnny, why don’t you put that thing down, let me talk to my lady, and when we are done, we’ll pick right back up where we left off.”
“I will blow your fooking head off,” Johnny said, cocking the hammer. “Put the phone down.”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” Steele hit the end button and set the phone on his lap. “She’s just going to call back,” he said with a shrug.
Instead of a call Meg sent a text.
“Great, now she is sending me a text. Thanks a lot, Johnny.”
He unlocked the phone with a swipe of his finger and read: This is the man who attacked you. His name is Aleksandr Zakayev. Steele opened the message and found himself looking at the man with the tattooed hands. Rage rippled across his body like the return stroke of a lightning bolt.
Johnny slipped his finger inside the pistol’s trigger guard. The girls sensed the change in Steele and edged away from Johnny. The two men stared at each other in silence.
Steele felt the Browning Hi Power holstered on his hip. You’re fast, but not that fast, he thought.
“What’s it going to be, Johnny? You going to help me out?” Steele asked, gesturing with the cell phone in his left hand. He pulled his feet in and got them set beneath the chair. Steele’s leg muscles coiled, the tension building like springs.
One of the girls whimpered, and Johnny’s eyes involuntarily sought the source of the noise. It’s now or never.
Steele flicked the phone at Johnny like he was trying to bury a playing card in a sheet of plywood. He jumped to his feet, knocking the chair over, and side-kicked the bodyguard in the chest. The blow drove the man backward, and he slammed into the closed door.
The impact cracked the frame and popped the lock free from the jamb. The door came open and the bodyguard tumbled inside the room. Steele was about to follow him into the room when there was an explosion.
He covered his face with his arm and saw the second bodyguard rushing toward him.
Steele grabbed his wrist and slung him toward his boss. Johnny panicked and reflexively pulled the trigger. The guard took the bullet in the gut and tumbled across the table. Steele stepped into the second room, clearing it from the threshold.
He assumed the man lying dead on the couch was the man he’d been chasing, which meant his target had gotten away.
“He’s gone,” Steele yelled to Demo.
“On it,” his handler said.
The hallway door burst open and three more guards rushed in.
Demo hit the first man with a controlled pair to the chest. He fell, and the second guard hurtled his body. Steele kicked the chair toward the man, tripping him in midair. The man went down but managed to roll over his shoulder and jumped to his feet.
Steele backhanded him across the face. It wasn’t enough to break his nose, but it got his eyes watering and allowed Steele to get closer.
He slapped his hands over his attacker’s ears, grabbed the back of the head, and jerked his knee into his face, but the man wouldn’t go down.
The hell with this.
Steele hit him with a tight left and skinned the Browning from its holster. He fired two shots from the hip. Demo had taken care of the final guard and was stepping into the hall, leaving Steele to deal with Johnny, who had untangled himself from the dead bodyguard, raised his revolver, and fired.
The bullet went high, blasting the sconce off the wall and showering the room with shards of glass.
Steele centered the Hi Power on Johnny’s forehead. “Game over,” he said, pulling the trigger.
He stepped inside the room and saw the two bodies and the open window. Steele holstered the pistol, climbed through the window, and jumped down to the Dumpster.
“Percy, Demo is on the move, meet me on the east side of the building.”
Chapter 35
Steele jumped into the SUV.
“Where are Red and Phillip?” he asked.
“Figured we might need another set of wheels, told them to go find some transportation,” Percy replied.
“Good call.” Steele lifted his radio and keyed the button. “Demo, where you at, buddy?”
Nothing.
Steele pulled out his phone, his imagination working through the worst-case scenarios. Was Demo compromised? Hurt? Or worse, was his keeper dead? Lock it down. Focus on what you know. Steele leaned forward in the seat, scanning the alleys and shadows of the street. Demo was a pro, he knew how to handle himself. Steele’s finger hovered over the call button. He had a choice to make: let Demo work or make the call and possibly blow his cover.
Steele forced himself to wait.
Percy slammed on the brakes, throwing Steele forward in his seat. He caught himself on the dash. “What the hell?” he demanded.
The Englishman pulled over to the side of the road, nodding to the street corner where Demo stood with his thumb out.
“Is this my Uber?” he asked, jumping in the backseat.
The tension drained off Steele’s shoulders and he felt ten pounds lighter knowing that his friend was okay.
“Good to know I’ve still got it,” Demo said.
“Got what?” Steele asked.
“My skills.” Demo cracked before he placed his cell phone in the SUV’s cup holder.
The tracking app was open on the screen and it showed a dot moving through the city.
“How did you manage that?” Steele asked.
“Because I’m a ninja. If I’d had more time I would have taken them all out,” Demo said with a grin, “but I didn’t want to ruin your fun, so I just got the plate off their car.”
“And then he sent it to me.” Meg’s voice came through the phone.
It felt good to hear her voice, and a goofy grin crept across Steele’s face.
“Nice to hear your voice, stranger.”
“You too.”
Meg got back on task.
“Demo sent the plate and I used Keyhole to grab the VIN and log in to the nav system. The track is real time.”
A moment later a shining black Mercedes pulled up next to the SUV, and Steele saw Red smiling from behind the wheel.
“Always wanted one of these,” he said.
“Did you just steal that?” Demo asked.
“Borrowed, mate. Where are we headed?”
“Demo, send them the tracking info. I’m ready to put this rabid dog down.”
Chapter 36
Budapest
The neighborhood was an older section on the outskirts of town. A comfortable distance from the busy city center but not far enough to escape the creep of gentrification. The buildings stood in a row, most of the windows had been removed, and the open spaces reminded Zakayev of sockets with no eyes. Some of them were covered in scaffolding, others with clear plastic sheets that flapped in the breeze like a funeral shroud.
His mind wandered back to the day his life was changed forever. It was January of 1995, a new year that brought new hopes and dreams to the people of Grozny. Zakayev remembered the day well, the bare trees, the dark gray clouds in the east threatening snow, but most of all the cold.
It was bitterly cold outside, and he stopped in a doorway to warm his freezing hands. There was a red balloon stuck in one of the trees and he was looking at it when he saw the first Sukhoi Su-24. The warplane rolled silently out of the clouds, its wings extended for better control at low altitude. The pilot brought it lower and lower to the ground and then two black dots fell from its wings.
The pilot pulled up, hitting the afterburner, and the sound was the loudest thing Zakayev had ever heard. Everyone on the street stopped and looked up as the plane rose higher and higher. Zakayev kept his eyes on the specks, watching them tumble end over end toward the apartment complex where he lived with his family.
He was twelve.
Later he would learn to tell the difference between a five-hundred-pound bomb and the bigger two thousand pounders. But at the time he was still a child, still innocent in the ways of war and man’s brutality.
The explosion ripped the top six floors from the rest of the building, enveloping the street in black smoke and the smell of burning flesh. Zakayev wandered out into the street as five more Su-24s rolled in, dropped their payload, and disappeared.
Zakayev now lit a cigarette and glanced down the street, where the driver waited with the Audi, and then turned his attention to the way station. A shape flittered across the front of the target building. It was Cyril. The man crept up on the porch and then there was a hammering sound followed by the clang of falling metal.
Fucking Russian. Can’t even break into an abandoned building without making noise.
The thought brought Yuri to the forefront of his mind.
He was weak. A liability, the voice said.
Yes, Zakayev said to himself, he was also my friend.
Friend? the voice screeched. A friend that would have got you killed. Or worse, put back in the hole.
The thought of Black Dolphin and the hole sent a shiver up Zakayev’s spine.
“I am never going back,” he said.
You will if you don’t wake up. Don’t you realize that it is us versus them?
A beam of a white-lensed flashlight from across the street snapped him back to the now. It was the signal.
Time to move.
He crossed the street and went into the building, an old three-story department store that was being turned into apartments.
Zakayev pulled a headlamp over his forehead and headed to the stairs. He followed the map he’d found in the package, taking the long hallway covered in spiderwebs until it came to a T. He took a left, counting the doors until he came to the fifth one. Zakayev shoved the small prybar between the door and the frame and popped the lock.
It was a boiler room.
He had to duck to keep from hitting the pipes and made his way to the back, where he found the panel hiding the ladder. At the bottom, just as the map had indicated, was a metal door with a combination lock.
Zakayev dropped his pack and pulled out a suction cup, which he attached to the dial. He connected a cord to the laptop and hit enter. The dial began to turn, the screen showing a diagram of the lock. Each time a tumbler fell into place the computer made a notation until finally the lock clicked open.
He disconnected the device and stepped into the room.
The way stations were safehouses the Alphas had used during the Cold War. Places where a spy could rest, refit, or hide out. Zakayev was the first person to visit this one in twenty-five years.
The room contained what had been the most cutting-edge equipment in its day—maps, documents, passports, even a stack of MREs or Meals Ready to Eat. There was a desk covered in a foot of dust, a radio set on the far wall, and Zakayev’s target: an ancient-looking computer.
Compared to what was on the market today the system was laughable, but in the ’90s it was state-of-the-art, the most advanced system in Europe.
The way stations were technically still operational, which meant that the terminal had an open link to the files he was hired to retrieve. Miraculously the computer still worked.
Zakayev knew nothing about computers, but according to Gabriel all he had to do was follow the instructions on the printed card he had in his pocket. The card was laid out like the safety information in the back pocket of an airplane seat. Little cartoon boxes that guided him through the process. He flipped the computer on, listened to it hum and beep, and when the screen showed the prompt on the card he hit enter on the Toughbook.
Do you want to enable remote desktop?
Zakayev looked at the card, following the blocks to Step 3, which said Enable remote desktop.
He moved the curser over the OK block and clicked the touch pad.
Gabriel had told him what would happen when he hit enter.
“Once you are connected to the computer, our man will use a program to break the sixty-four-bit encryption and log on to the network. By piggybacking onto the secure server, the American software won’t realize what is happening. All you have to do is wait.”
Five minutes later Transfer Complete flashed on the computer.
Zakayev was done, he had what he’d come for. Now it was time to get out.
One step closer to getting free of Gabriel, the voice sneered.
Chapter 37
Budapest
“Why here?” Steele asked, looking at the blinking red dot that marked the position of Zakayev’s Audi.
On the screen the route the Audi had taken was marked by a blue squiggly line. The driver had cut south after leaving the Last Drop and hopped on Motor Highway Zero, or M0, as it was labeled on the map.
The M0 was known as the ring road and formed a lazy circle around the city, connecting all of the outlying highways.
Steele had asked Percy to “give them room,” knowing that Zakayev would be checking for tails. His suspicions were affirmed by the countless tiny circles on the screen. “Crazy Ivans” Percy called them.
“Name came from a maneuver the Soviet submarine captains during the Cold War would use if they thought they were being followed. They would order the sub helmsman to bring the sub around a hundred eighty so they could use the sonar to check their back trail.”
“Smart,” Demo said.
After fifteen aimless minutes of cruising around the left bank of the city, the Audi hopped back on the M0. This time their path was straight and it led them to their current position on the outskirts of the Fourth District.
The area still bore the scars of the Russian occupation of Hungary that followed World War II. Mainly the panelház, the drab prefabricated apartment tenements the Soviets built throughout the Eastern Bloc.
To Steele, they looked like a stack of pillboxes, similar to the ones he’d seen on the beaches of Normandy. Except the structures weren’t for keeping invaders out. They were built as affordable housing for the Communist Party.
Percy pulled over and shoved the transmission into park. His phone rang and he picked it up, the light from the screen illuminating his face.
“It’s Red,” he said aloud. “They found the car. Wants to know if you want them to do a drive-by of the area?”
“No. Tell them to hang back,” Steele said. “We need to make sure this is their final stop.”
“Demo, run the grid through Cutlass Main, see if we can find out—”
“Already on it,” Demo said, eyes glued to the PDA in his hand.
“Maybe he’s stopped for a spot of tea,” Percy suggested.
“Zakayev is crazy, but he is also calculating. He is after something, we just need to find out what it is.”
“No active locations,” Demo muttered. “Let’s check the archives.”
They sat in silence for almost a minute and then:
“Bingo.”
“Whatcha got?” Steele turned to Demo.
“This building here,” he said, showing him the screen. “Was a way station during the Cold War. According to the archives the Program managed to get an asset into the city and he set one up in the basement of that building.”
“Way station?” Percy asked.
“A secure facility our guys could use to refit or send encrypted information back to the States,” Steele answered. “When was it deactivated?” he asked Demo.
