Betrayal (23 page)

Suddenly a horn echoed down the tunnel, and Umarov turned, frozen like a deer in the headlights as the rock loader barrelled straight towards him. Then, in a storm of metal and a sickening crunch, he was gone, leaving only a bloody smear on the tunnel floor where he’d been.

Afghanistan, 24 September 1988

She was afraid.

For the first time in a long time, she was afraid.

With her hands cuffed behind her back, she was dragged down the bare concrete corridor, her boots rasping on the floor, tendrils of dirty hair hanging down around her face. Her combat uniform was ripped and torn and bloodied, her body bruised and cut; mute testimony to the vicious, desperate fight she had put up before her capture.

She had done what she could, holding off her enemies until she had almost run out of ammunition, and buying vital time for her team to escape. She could count three kills at least. Three more added to the tally of death against her name.

She had long since lost track of how many men she’d killed.

The two soldiers dragging her were dressed in camouflage fatigues, stained with dust and smelling of sweat and burned cordite. They were Spetsnaz – Soviet special forces, part of the unit that had ambushed her team.

The loss of their comrades would be at the forefront of their minds. Vaguely she remembered kicks and punches raining in on her earlier, delivered with vicious hatred that knew no bounds of gender. She could feel the deep ache of heavy bruising all over her body.

She smiled to herself, though it would have appeared to anyone watching as a fierce, predatory grimace. Kicks and punches like that might have cowed many people, but not her. She had been through far worse in her short life, and she could take it.

She could take anything, she told herself.

Up ahead, a heavy steel door was thrown open and she was dragged inside. The room beyond was shrouded in shadow. From her limited field of view all she could make out was the same bare concrete floor as outside, and a simple wooden chair standing alone in the centre of the room.

It didn’t take much imagination to work out who the chair was for, and her suspicions were confirmed when she was unceremoniously dumped on to it, her hands quickly secured to the back. One of the soldiers delivered a backhanded slap to the side of her head that jolted it sideways and left her ears ringing, though they held off further attacks.

She knew they wouldn’t seriously harm her. Not yet, at least.

For the next several seconds, nothing happened. Silence descended on the room, and she waited with the two Spetsnaz operatives glaring at her. She felt her heartbeat quicken despite her efforts to still it, and a growing urge to swallow made her acutely aware of the apprehension creeping up from the pit of her stomach.

She had faced combat many times without fear, knowing she was at least in a situation she could control. She could anticipate and react to threats, make decisions, protect herself. Here that control was gone. She was helpless, and as much as she tried to ignore it, she was afraid.

She heard a dull metallic rasp from behind, followed by the faint crackle of burning paper as a cigarette was lit. Then, a few moments later, an exhalation of breath, long and slow and controlled. She smelled tobacco smoke.

‘I said once that you were capable of remarkable things, Anya,’ a voice remarked. Low, smooth and rich, and under normal circumstances pleasant to listen to. But not today. ‘It seems I was right.’

Those words sent a shiver of fear down to her very core, because she knew who that voice belonged to, and she knew what it meant for her.

He had found her. Somehow he had tracked her down to this remote corner of the world, expending every resource at his disposal. And now he had her.

‘You didn’t really think you could play this little game and get away with it, did you?’ he asked, his tone one of sympathy mixed with simmering anger. ‘Believe me, I played it long before you, and I’ll be playing it long after you’re gone.’

Still she said nothing in response. She kept staring straight ahead, resisted the urge to swallow.

‘I want you to do something for me, Anya. I want you to forget the world as you knew it, because you’re no longer part of it. East and West, America and Russia … it’s all gone. Here, all of that is irrelevant. Here, there is only you and me, and we have all the time in the world together. I want to know why you betrayed your country, Anya. I want to know why you betrayed me. And you will tell me.’

She remained silent while he took another drag on the cigarette, slow and thoughtful. ‘Don’t feel like talking?’ He chuckled with amusement. ‘You will. Believe me, you will.’

Tbilisi, Georgia, 22 December 2008

Anya had never been one for visiting churches. She was all too aware of the things she had done in her life, and was under no illusions about where she sat on the great spectrum of morality. She neither needed nor desired the comfort and forgiveness that churches purported to give the faithful.

Indeed, she had never really known religious faith. She had grown up in the Soviet Union, where organised religion was all but outlawed and the State had become the highest power known to the masses. Churches and those who worshipped in them were seen as anachronisms; strange and primitive relics from a vanished world. And later, in other places, she had seen for herself the shocking excesses and barbarity that people committed in the names of their beliefs.

There was little to be found in any religion that appealed to her.

However, she certainly did appreciate peace and quiet, and those were two things that the ancient building in which she now sat provided in abundance. Its thick walls protected them from the din of the busy city outside, leaving the interior bathed in cool, quiet darkness.

The only other inhabitants were a couple of old women sitting near the altar, their bent backs and deeply lined faces making them appear almost as ancient as the church around them. So near the ends of their lives, she supposed they had nothing better to do than linger in such places.

The Anchiskhati Basilica was the oldest church in Tbilisi, dating all the way back to the sixth century. Various invaders, from the Turks to the Persians, had tried to destroy it over the years, but still the ancient building stood – a quiet, dignified monument to the power of endurance.

That was another quality which Anya appreciated.

Sitting in a simple wooden pew near the ancient brickwork of the outer wall, she was oddly conscious of the sense of age and remembrance that hung over this place. How many other people had sat in this exact spot, seeking forgiveness, inspiration, guidance or just a hint that they weren’t alone in the world?

She closed her eyes and bowed her head, not in prayer, but in a simple moment of reflection. For the first time in what felt like days, she allowed her guard to drop a little, allowed her restless attention to wane and her thoughts to grow still. Just for a moment, she was at peace.

She became aware of the approaching footsteps as soon as they entered the church, heading towards her at a slow, measured pace. Exactly on time, just as she’d known he would be. Everything he did was timed and planned to perfection.

She heard him shuffle along the narrow space between pews and ease himself down next to her, the old wooden seat creaking under his not inconsiderable weight.

‘Many come here in search of absolution,’ he whispered. ‘Are you one of them?’

Anya opened her eyes slowly as if waking from a dream, then turned to look at her contact. The man at the very centre of everything that was happening. The man whose great mind had engineered a plot to bring down one of the biggest intelligence agencies in the world.

Never had she seen a more unlikely candidate for such an undertaking.

He was the kind of man one passed a dozen times a day and never noticed. Short, overweight and balding. With small eyes nestled in fleshy folds behind a pair of old-fashioned wire-framed glasses, his face was rounded and genial looking. The kind of face to which it seemed smiles and laugher should come easily.

But they didn’t. Not for him, not now.

He was no soldier, no hired killer, no black operative with years of training and experience to call upon. He’d started his journey as a simple man, a family man with little ambition beyond making a good life for himself and those he loved.

Fate, however, had taken Buran Atayev down a very different path.

‘It was you who chose this meeting place,’ she reminded him.

She had no idea how he’d arrived here, or what the travel arrangements for the rest of the group had been. Likewise, they had no knowledge of her movements. Everything had been set up so that no one element of the group could compromise any other.

Her objective was simply to be here at this church, at this precise hour. How exactly that happened was up to her.

‘It was.’ Atayev nodded towards the stained-glass window behind the altar, depicting a scene of St George slaying the dragon. ‘Rather appropriate, don’t you think?’

She couldn’t say for sure whether Atayev saw himself as a virtuous man fighting a good fight against an evil enemy – whether that was the higher purpose he used to excuse his actions. But in any case, the task standing before them made the slaying of a dragon seem easy by comparison.

‘It’s good to see you again, my friend,’ Atayev went on, genuinely meaning it. That was one thing Anya, with her intuitive ability to read body language and sense deception in others, had always appreciated about him. When he said things, he meant them.

‘And you,’ Anya said quietly.

Letting out a slow, thoughtful breath, Atayev bowed his head. To anyone watching it would appear he was deep in prayer.

‘They’ve found the link to the explosives,’ he said. ‘The FSB are in Norilsk now, along with a pair of CIA agents.’

Anya raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t unexpected, though she was surprised at how quickly they had made the connection between the bomb and its origin. And the mention of CIA agents immediately set off alarm bells in her head.

‘What is the CIA’s stake in this?’ she asked, unable to keep from looking at him. Anya was used to keeping her deeper thoughts hidden, but even she couldn’t hide the faint anxiety in her eyes, or the tension in her voice.

She saw a flicker of a smile on his fleshy face. He’d picked up on it too.

‘One of their operatives has become involved in the investigation. A man named Drake – Ryan Drake.’

Anya felt her heart sink. She should have known Drake wouldn’t be able to leave it alone after their close encounter in DC. The man was relentless, pursuing her with every resource at his disposal. She could only assume it was part of some misguided attempt to protect her, though in reality his interference might have the opposite effect.

‘It seems this man Drake is more intelligent than his FSB colleagues,’ Atayev went on. ‘Some of his team have been dispatched to Norilsk, but he himself is in Chechnya.’

It was all she could do to keep from gritting her teeth with exasperation. Drake was unbalancing their plan, moving things forward more quickly than they should be. And if he continued, he could well destroy everything she was working for.

‘Have they guessed the next target?’

‘I don’t believe so. Not yet, at least. But we must move quickly.’ His expression remained neutral, but his eyes told a different story. ‘You realise of course that if this Drake stands in our way, he becomes an enemy like any other?’

‘I do.’ She spoke truthfully, but she’d hesitated for a moment too long.

Atayev had seen it too. He leaned a little closer and lowered his voice. ‘I’ve never had reason to doubt you, Anya. I know you’re an honest person, and I must ask you to be honest with me now. Too much is at stake for me to take a chance on someone who could fail me at a crucial moment. What do you know of Ryan Drake?’

Anya met his searching gaze, knowing she had little choice but to give him the honesty he desired. ‘We’ve encountered each other before,’ she admitted, unwilling to go into further detail.

The man’s eyes betrayed no hint of the shock and surprise she might have expected at such a revelation. He knew, or had at least guessed, the truth already. He’d simply been testing her.

‘So Drake knows who you are. He could compromise you, and all of us.’

She knew she had to tread carefully now. Atayev posed no threat to her in a physical sense, but he nonetheless possessed the ability to destroy at a stroke everything she hoped to achieve.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, hoping it was true. ‘He trusts me. If he’s involved, it’s because he’s trying somehow to protect me.’

‘I want to believe you, Anya. But you realise of course that this puts me in a very difficult position. Whether or not you trust his intentions, he remains a threat. Therefore, that makes you a liability.’

‘There are risks in every operation,’ she reminded him, hoping she looked and sounded more composed than she felt. ‘I’m still your best chance of achieving your goal.’

He exhaled slowly. ‘That may be so. But if Drake threatens our plan, I must know that you will deal with him. If not, you can go no further with us. Speak honestly now, and I’ll believe you.’

Anya’s face paled at the thought of killing Drake. And yet, even as her conscious mind rebelled against it, another part of her began to take hold. The soldier, the survivor who always did what was necessary to stay alive, to achieve her objective at any cost. That part of her had long ago pushed aside such notions of weakness and compassion, because they were luxuries she could ill afford.

Just as she couldn’t afford them now.

Atayev was right. Too much was at stake to risk it all on one man. If Drake stood against her, she would have no choice but to act as she always had – without mercy, without fear or weakness.

‘Drake won’t stop us,’ she promised him. ‘I’ll make sure of that.’