Betrayal (36 page)

Although she was trying not to sound threatening, she had to know the truth from this man, had to know she could trust him. For her, the best course of action was simply to ask.

From a young age Anya had been endowed with the ability to perceive the subtle visual cues and signals that people give off without conscious awareness. She couldn’t explain it exactly, but that same skill allowed her to anticipate her opponent’s movements in a fight, and even to know with a fair degree of certainty when they were lying.

If that was the case with Atayev, she would kill him and the rest of the men in the hangar without hesitation, and take her chances alone. The automatic shoved down the back of her jeans was loaded and ready to be fired. What he said in the next few seconds would decide his fate.

She didn’t have to say anything more. He sensed her implied threat, and the danger he was now in. ‘I had no part in that, Anya. That’s the truth.’

She sensed no hint of deception in either his voice or his expression. If he was lying to her, his skills at deception rivalled the best operatives the Agency had ever produced. She was obliged to conclude that he was being honest with her.

‘And can you say the same of the rest of your men?’ she asked, with a momentary glance at Goran and the others.

Atayev said nothing, though his expression made it obvious that he was just as unsettled by the implication as she. One or more of their group could be compromised.

The bleep of his cellphone interrupted their brief conversation. Retrieving it from his pocket, Atayev opened the incoming text message. The look in his eyes made it clear the news wasn’t good.

‘Is there a problem?’ Anya asked.

He pocketed the phone once more, his brow furrowed in thought.

‘A change of plan,’ he corrected her. ‘We may have to move faster than we’d intended.’

Drake braced himself as the Mi-24 attack helicopter ploughed through another gusting crosswind, jolting him in his seat and straining his already injured shoulder. Steep slopes mantled by fir trees flitted past his window at over 150 knots, their features so identical that they looked like a storm-tossed sea in the darkness.

They were contouring one of the many river valleys that ran through the area, using the steep tree-covered slopes both to hide the chopper from sight and to mask the considerable noise of its engines as they approached their target.

Mi-24s were best known by their NATO code name ‘Hind’, but they had also been endowed with the rather more flattering nickname of Flying Tanks by their pilots, and one look at them was enough to see why. Fifty-seven feet long and half as wide, bristling with guns and rockets, and protected by a belt of armour able to withstand 20mm cannon shells, they were massive, imposing machines of war. Acting as both heavily armed gunships and troop transports, Hinds had no equivalent anywhere in the Western arsenal.

They had given the Mujahideen a few headaches in Afghanistan back in the eighties, and remained formidable aircraft twenty years later. He had never been inside one himself until today, but he supposed there was a first time for everything.

As he’d hoped, Frost had once again come through for them. One of the Agency’s newest Block IV KH-11 spy satellites had been passing over the FSB compound at the time of the attack, allowing the technical specialist to track the vehicle used to abduct Masalsky.

The trail had led her to an abandoned military airfield north of Grozny before the KH-11’s orbit had carried it beyond the horizon, preventing further observation until the next pass. From what Miranova had been able to learn, the airfield had once belonged to the Russian air force, used to house MiG fighter-bombers before being decommissioned after the Cold War. The years of conflict in Chechnya had destroyed what little infrastructure remained, putting it permanently out of use.

And now here they were, roaring through the darkened skies over Chechnya in a desperate race to find Masalsky before his captors executed him.

For Drake, however, this race had a far more personal goal. He was after Anya, and nothing else. She had crossed the line today. If she wanted to play rough, then so be it. He was coming for her, and nothing and no one was going to get in his way.

As the chopper banked hard right, Drake was suddenly very conscious that one slip-up could see them plough straight into the side of a mountain. The airframe shuddered under the strain as gravity fought against its 26,000 pounds of armour, fuel and engines.

‘Are you all right?’ Miranova asked over the intercom, her face illuminated by the red glow of the aircraft’s dim internal lighting.

‘Helicopters and I don’t mix,’ he said tersely, memories of being shot out of the sky by a Stinger missile in Afghanistan still fresh in his mind. ‘How long until we get there?’

She raised an eyebrow, but wisely decided not to pursue the matter further. ‘We are close. Only a couple of minutes.’

Drake clenched his fists. A lot could happen in a couple of minutes.

‘Ground teams have sealed off all nearby roads, and one of our unmanned drones has been vectored in. We have the entire area covered by thermal imaging. If anyone tries to leave, we will see them.’

He wished he shared her confidence. Anya had already proven herself more than capable of both second-guessing and outwitting them. Next to her he felt like a rank amateur, even with the formidable resources of the FSB to call upon.

‘So what’s the assault plan?’ he asked, trying to focus on the task ahead of them.

‘We will fast-rope down, secure the airfield and recover Masalsky. The helicopter will provide close air support if we need it.’

Drake hadn’t missed the ‘we’ in her statement. Clearly she intended to go in with the assault team. ‘When was the last time you did this?’

‘More recently than you, I think.’

She paused for a moment, head cocked as she listened to an incoming transmission.

‘Stand by,’ Miranova warned as the chopper’s nose flared upwards, rotors beating the air as they clawed their way out of the river valley that had carried them almost all the way to their target. ‘Thirty seconds!’

The speed of the full-powered ascent caught even Drake by surprise, and he felt himself pushed down into his seat by the acceleration. He felt as if he’d left his stomach behind. Chancing a glance out the window, he could just make out the dark shapes of trees skimming by frighteningly close.

Cresting the lip of the valley, their flight path at last began to even out as the Hind swung right, coming in for its final approach to the target.

‘Ten seconds!’

Pushkin, the FSB tactical agent who had been with them during the raid on Glazov’s farm, rose to his feet, gripping a safety strap to steady himself as the pilots fought to keep the aircraft steady. The nose was rising again to bleed off speed and bring them in to hover over the target.

Drake glanced over at Mason, who had remained more or less silent for most of the flight. Whatever their disagreements earlier, both of them knew better than to hold a grudge while their lives might be on the line.

‘Good to go?’

Mason looked at him and, contrary to his usual wisecracking style, merely nodded.

Drake could guess why he was on edge. Fast-rope descents required a lot of upper-body strength, as one’s entire weight was placed on the arms. Descending a rope from a swaying helicopter in freezing weather conditions was difficult enough for a fit and healthy adult, never mind someone like Mason who was coming back from a long spell of inactivity.

‘If you’re not feeling up to this—’

‘I’m fine, for Christ’s sake!’ Mason snapped, anger flaring in his eyes. ‘Just worry about yourself, Ryan.’

Drake never got a chance to make a comeback. Gripping the hatch release, Pushkin unlatched it and shoved hard, pushing it backwards on its rollers.

Straight away a maelstrom of wind and freezing rain assailed them. Like the rest of the team, Drake was clad in several layers of insulated fabric, but the cold seemed to penetrate right through as if they weren’t even there. The
thump, thump, thump
of the rotor blades just overhead drowned out any attempt at verbal communication. It was hand gestures only for now.

Drake watched as the FSB agent reached out and clipped his line into the pylon mounted on the side of the aircraft, then gave it a hard yank to test the clip. This was the interesting part, when the team roped down to their assault position.

They were utterly vulnerable during that time, unable to return fire or take cover if someone decided to have a pop at them. The Hind’s gunner was no doubt sweeping the area with his thermal optics, looking for any sign of anti-aircraft weaponry. The aircraft too was vulnerable while they waited for the team to deploy.

With his line checked, Pushkin gripped the thick nylon rope and disappeared over the edge. The next agent followed a few seconds later, and the next, until the entire tactical team had descended in short order. Miranova, like her male comrades, paused at the hatch just long enough to get a good grip of the rope, then pushed herself off the deck and vanished into the darkness.

Now it was Drake’s turn.

There was no great technicality to fast-roping. In essence it involved gripping the rope with thick padded gloves, loosening it a little and allowing gravity to do the rest. It was simple and quick, the only downside being that there was no descent harness, no backup line, no safeguards. If you slipped or lost your grip, it was game over.

Wrapping his fingers around the rope to get a good grip, and trying not to think about the sickening fall that would result if he fucked this up, Drake pushed himself off from the chopper’s deck and relaxed his grip a little to start his descent.

He didn’t wrap his boots around the rope, even though it would have given him extra grip and taken some of the strain off his arms. Boot polish from the leather could rub off on to the descent line, making it dangerously slick.

The downwash from the main rotors was immense, jerking the rope from side to side despite his considerable weight. He felt like a kid on a rope swing, swaying uncontrolled and clinging on for dear life. The frigid air clawed his throat, rain whipping into his eyes, while pain burned outwards from his injured shoulder.

He was going too slowly. He felt as though he was still 100 feet in the air. Easing off his grip even more, he felt the tiny nylon braids slipping through his fingers, accompanied by rapidly building heat from the resulting friction. Then, almost out of nowhere, the ground rushed up to meet him.

He braced himself as he landed hard, rolling to lessen the impact and releasing his grip on the line. It wasn’t the most graceful landing ever, but at least he was down. And he’d managed to take the weight off his shoulder, much to his relief.

Drawing his automatic, he picked himself up and rushed forwards, eager to get clear of the landing zone. Not only would it keep them spread out and prevent a single burst of fire from wiping out the whole team, but it would also ensure Mason didn’t land right on top of him.

No sooner had this thought crossed his mind than Mason abruptly released his grip and fell the remaining 15 feet or so, landing in an awkward sprawl mere feet away. Fortunately for him, the deep mud had at least served to cushion his fall, if not his pride.

As the Hind peeled away to begin circling the target area, Drake turned to his friend, who was struggling to extricate himself from the mud. Hurrying forwards, Drake grabbed him by the arm and applied more than enough pressure to get his attention.

‘What the fuck was that?’ Drake hissed. ‘You trying to fly in?’

‘Not now, man,’ Mason growled, shoving him away. He was making a show of being angry, but nonetheless Drake could tell the descent had taken a heavy toll on him.

The other agents were already spreading out to form a perimeter, moving in pairs to cover each other and bent low to present smaller targets.

Up ahead stood the first major structure Drake had seen in the facility – an air control tower overlooking the overgrown wilderness that had once been the runway. It was obvious the building hadn’t been used in a long time. All of the upper windows, which must once have offered a panoramic view of the airfield and runway, were long gone. The big radar array on top was a rusting, decrepit wreck, with one entire panel missing and broken cables hanging down the side of the tower like vines.

‘Come on,’ Drake hissed, pulling Mason to his feet. ‘Get the fuck up.’

Gripping his automatic tight in his gloved hands, he hurried over to join Miranova at the base of the control tower, with Mason right behind him. Despite the freezing air he was already sweating through his BDUs with a combination of exertion and nervous energy.

The adrenalin was flowing hard and fast as he backed up against the rough, pitted concrete wall next to her, his heart thumping so loud that it seemed anyone nearby must hear it. Taking a deeper breath to calm himself, he craned his head around the edge of the building to survey their surroundings properly for the first time.

Two aircraft hangars stood about 50 yards away. They were big structures, about 30 feet high and twice as wide, resembling giant concrete hexagons laid on their sides, with steel sliding doors covering their mouths. They were hardened strike shelters, designed to protect high-value aircraft from all but the most powerful of bombs. He’d seen plenty of structures just like them on air bases throughout America and Western Europe.

Further away stood a large two-storey building, probably once an office and administrative area, and perhaps even an accommodation block. It looked just as neglected and dilapidated as the rest of the buildings here, with broken windows, empty doorways and ivy creeping over the crumbling walls.

Trees and bushes were beginning to take root here and there, forming small forests of new growth. Nature was gradually reclaiming the abandoned airfield.

Drake heard the rustle of fabric as Miranova sidled along the wall next to him. She was so close he could feel her warm breath on his cheek. ‘It is quiet here,’ she remarked, clearly suspicious of the lack of resistance.