Covert One 6 - The Moscow Vector (22 page)

Jon nodded tersely. A few years before he had worked closely with the tall, barrel-chested FSB officer, joining in a desperate hunt to track down a container full of deadly smallpox stolen from one of Russia’s biological weapons facilities. Since then he had often wondered how Kirov, so closely tied to his country’s political reformers, was faring under the rule of President Dudarev and his hard-line cronies.

Now he knew.

“Small talk and career news will have to wait until later,” Fiona broke in.

“Right now we should be moving.” She waved a hand at the street. “As it is, we’re drawing a crowd.”

“True,” Kirov agreed, glancing briefly over his shoulder. Cars that had braked hard to avoid the crash he had caused were scattered randomly across the street. A few of the drivers were climbing out of their stalled vehicles to stare at the tangled wreckage. Others who had heard all the noise were spilling out of the neighboring apartment buildings, restaurants, and cafes.

Several of the onlookers were speaking excitedly into their cell phones, pre-sumably summoning the militia and emergency medical assistance.

Kirov looked back at the two Americans. “You have what you came for?

Those notes Dr. Vedenskaya brought for you?”

“They’re right here,” Fiona said, gingerly retrieving the bloodstained plastic binder from where it had fallen during the crash.

Smith turned grimly toward the dazed white-coated man huddled in one corner of the ambulance. The doctor was groaning softly now, drifting right on the edge of full consciousness. “Let’s take that son of a bitch with us. I have

a feu questions to ask him. For one thing, just how the hell he knew my real name and rank.”

The former FSB officer nodded. “An excellent question. If nothing else, it would also be useful to learn who issued his orders and where he was taking you.”

Together he and Smith dragged the sallow-faced man out onto the street.

Clotting blood matted the sparse hair on the back of their prisoner’s head. His eyes were half-closed and clearly unable to focus. Propping the injured man up between them, Smith and Kirov half-carried, half-dragged him around the side of the ambulance. Fiona walked beside them, still keeping a wary eye on the small, but growing crowd of the curious drawn to what must have seemed a terrible accident.

Jon whistled softly. The collision had smashed in the whole front end of the emergency vehicle, reducing it to a mangled mass of twisted steel and broken glass. Still tangled in their seat belts, the two men who had been riding in front were slumped back against the seat. Both held weapons in their hands.

Both had been shot dead at pointblank range.

He glanced at Kirov. “Your work, I presume?”

The other man nodded somberly. “It was regrettable, but necessary. I had no time for half-measures.” He indicated the dark blue Niva slewed across the street beside the wrecked ambulance. “Come. Our chariot awaits.”

Smith stared at the small SUV, noting the 4x4’s smashed grill, dented hood, and broken headlights. He arched an eyebrow. “You think that piece of junk is still in good running condition?”

“Let us hope so, Jon,” Kirov said with a bleak smile. “Otherwise we could be in for a very long, cold, and conspicuous walk.”

The Russian propped their dazed captive up against the Niva’s side. He tugged the rear passenger side door open. “Let’s get him inside. Ms. Devin will sit up front by me. You take the back seat and keep your weapon aimed at our guest here. Make sure he stays down on the floor and out of sight.”

Smith nodded. He turned toward the bleary-eyed ambulance doctor. “In you go, pal,” he growled, using the barrel of his Makarov to prod the wavering man toward the open door.

Crack.

Their prisoner’s head exploded, torn open by a high-velocity rifle round.

Blood and bits of shattered bone sprayed across the Niva’s upholstered interior. The dead man slid slowly down the side of the truck.

“Get down! Take cover!” Smith roared. He dived for the snow-covered asphalt just as another rifle bullet smashed the window right above his head.

Splinters and shards of broken glass cascaded across the back of his neck and bounced off the street beside him.

Kirov and Fiona Devin raced for cover and dropped flat behind the boxy Russian-manufactured 4x4.

Panicked by the sudden burst of gunfire, the civilians who had been drawn to the accident scene fled, scattering in all directions like a flock of terrified

geese. Some ducked out of sight behind the cars parked along the street. Others stumbled back inside the surrounding buildings.

Caught out in the open, on the wrong side of Kirov’s vehicle, Smith rolled away to the right, heading for the shelter offered by the wrecked ambulance. A third 7.62mm round slapped into the street only inches away. It sent chunks of torn asphalt flying and then tumbled away past his ear, buzzing loudly like a malevolent, lethal wasp.

Panting with fear and exertion, Jon threw himself off to the side, rolling even faster now. He made it back to the mangled emergency vehicle and stopped moving. A fourth rifle bullet punched through torn metal and car-omed off the ambulance’s steel frame, showering him with sparks and tiny, jagged pieces of near-molten steel. Wincing, he brushed them away.

Smith thought fast, considering their options. Now what? So long as they stayed hidden behind solid cover, they were relatively safe from this unseen sniper. But that left them pinned down, unable to move or fight back effectively, and he could hear sirens closing in on them from several different directions.

He shook his head. Staying to surrender to the Moscow militia was not an option, not with Elena Vedenskaya’s case notes in their possession and four enemy agents sprawled dead across the street. He shifted his grip on the 9mm Makarov, mentally preparing himself to make a quick dash back to where Kirov and Fiona Devin were taking cover.

One hundred and fifty meters up Povorskaya Street, Erich Brandt knelt down beside the open door of his black Mercedes sedan. Another man lay prone on the road next to him, peering intently through the telescopic sight of a long-barreled Dragunov SVD sniper rifle.

“They’re all in good cover,” the marksman reported coolly. “But at least I managed to nail Sorokm.”

Brandt scowled. The “doctor,” an ex-KGB officer named Mikhail Sorokin, had been one of his most reliable agents, a coldly professional killer who had never muffed an assignment. Up until now, that was. Then he shrugged, pushing awav the momentary sense of regret. Although it had irked him to order Sorokin terminated, he had not been given any real choice. He would not risk leaving any of his operatives alive in enemy hands. “Can you flush the Americans out into the open?”

The other man shook his head slightly. “Not soon enough.” He shrugged.

“If they move anywhere on the street, I will kill them, but I cannot hit what I cannot see.”

Brandt nodded tightly.

The sniper pulled his eye away from the scope and looked toward his superior. “Do we wait for the militia to arrest them? Their first squad cars will be

here in a matter of minutes.”

Brandt pondered that. Thanks to Alexei Ivanov, he carried official credentials that would pass muster with the local police. If the militia took any prisoners, they could certainly be cowed into handing them over to him. But w hatever the immediate outcome, the surlv, suspicious chief of the Thirteenth Directorate would discover that he had been lied to, and that at least one American intelligence officer was already exploiting the Moscow-based breach in HYDRA’s operational security.

The blond-haired man grimaced. If so, it would be better by far to present the Russian spymasrer with a fait accompli in the form of Smith, Fiona Devin, and their unknown accomplice—dead if necessary, alive and under interrogation if possible. He glanced down at the sniper waiting patiently for his orders.

“We’ll cut off their first avenue of retreat,” he decided. “Disable their get-away

vehicle.”

The other man nodded calmly. “Easily done, Herr Brandt.”

He put his right eye back against the telescopic sight, shifted his aim slightly, and squeezed the trigger. The SVD sniper rifle fired, barely kicking up as its long, well-balanced barrel recoiled gently against his shoulder.

Smith scrambled to his feet and crossed the short open space between the ambulance and Kirov’s all-wheel drive SUV at a dead run. Another shot rang out. Still running flat-out, he dived forward, rolled on his shoulder, and came up crouching behind the Niva’s battered front end. He held the Makarov in a two-handed shooter’s grip, ready to fire immediately if any target presented itself in range.

“Very acrobatic, Doctor,” Kirov called wryly. The silver-haired Russian and Fiona Devin were King prone a couple of meters away. “I envy you your youthful agility.”

Smith forced himself to grin back, mainly conscious of the pulse pounding in his ears. The sniper zeroing in on them was too damned good. And he was close enough to put his rounds almost anywhere he chose with absolute precision.

The 4x4 rocked suddenly, hit by yet another 7.62mm round. It tore into the engine compartment, hit the block, and ricocheted up and out through the crumpled hood. Within seconds, the marksman switched targets and fired again, this time sending a heavy slug straight into the Niva’s fuel tank. Gasoline spilled out through the punctured metal, dripping onto the street at an ever-increasing rate. The next bullet hit the dashboard, smashing instruments and tearing through wiring.

The rifleman was destroying the Niva, Smith realized abruptly—

methodically putting rounds into every key system and component. “They’re trying to make sure we can’t bug out,” he told the others grimly. “We’re being held in check here for the militia to deal with.”

Fiona nodded. She bit her lip. “Does anyone have any bright ideas?”

“We leave,” Kirov said simply. “Right now.”

Fiona stared at him in disbelief. “And just how, precisely, do you propose that we do that?” she demanded. “This street will be swarming with militia in a minute or two. We won’t get two blocks on foot. And the closest Metro station is at least a kilometer away.”

“We liberate a car,” Kirov replied, almost smugly. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Take a look. We have plenty of options to choose from.”

Smith and Fiona turned around. The Russian was right. There were at least half a dozen vehicles scattered across the road, deserted by their panicked

owners when all the shooting started. Most had been abandoned so hurriedly that the keys were still in the ignition. Some still had their engines running.

Jon nodded quickly. “Good idea.” He glanced back at Kirov. “But we’ll need a distraction, something big. Otherwise that sniper out there will drop us one by one before we’ve gone even ten meters.”

The Niva shuddered again, hammered by another high-velocity round into the fuel tank. The sickly sweet stench of gasoline grew stronger. Leaking fuel spilled out from under the vehicle, slowly melting a meandering path through the dirty snow piled up around its tires.

“Very true,” Kirov agreed. He reached into his coat pocket and calmly pulled out a packet of matches. He bared his teeth in a quick, predatory grin.

“Fortunately, the means for such a distraction are close at hand.”

He struck a single match and used it to light the whole book, which blazed up in an instant. Then, without hesitating, the former FSB officer tossed the flaming matchbook under the Niva, right into the biggest puddle of gasoline.

It went up with a soft whoosh. Bright white flames leaped high, igniting the gallons of fuel still sloshing in the bullet-torn tank. In seconds, the whole back

end of dark blue 4x4 was fully engulfed in fire.

From his position up the street, Brandt saw the flames erupt suddenly beneath the Niva, spreading fast until the whole vehicle was alight. Black smoke boiled outward from the pyre. “Excellent work, Fadayev,” he told his marksman.

Smith and the others were trapped. With luck, that fire would flush them out of cover, right into the sights of his waiting sniper. If not, the loss of their

get-away car at least robbed the Americans of any real chance to escape the militia speeding to the scene.

But then, as the cloud of smoke began spreading fast, Brandt’s smile faded.

Buildings and whole swathes of the street behind the burning sport utility vehicle were disappearing from view, shrouded in smoke. The pall created bv the fire was acting as a screen, hiding the fugitives from view. “Do you have any targets yet?” he demanded.

“Negative. The smoke is too thick,” the prone marksman said. He took his eye away from the scope on his rifle and looked up. “What are your orders?”

Brandt listened to the sirens growing louder. His face darkened. The Russians would be here in moments. At last he snapped, “We’ll leave them for the militia and pick them up once they’re in custody. Smith and his friends won’t get far on foot.”

Smith lay flat behind the blazing 4x4. This close to the flames, he could feel the heat searing his face. Smoke from the inferno stung his eves. He breathed shallow ly, trving hard not to drag too much of the acrid fumes into his lungs. Visibilitv around them dropped to just a few meters as the smoke cloud billowed across the street. He glanced at Kirov and Fiona.

The Russian nodded in satisfaction. “Now we go.”

Without waiting any longer, they turned and loped awav. Kirov led them toward a small two-door car, a dingy, off-white Moskvitsh that had clearly seen more than its share of accidents and harsh winters. Its worn-out, lawn-mower-sized engine sputtered and coughed, left stuck in idle when its driver fled.

Jon nodded to himself, approving the other man’s choice. Of all the cars left abandoned on the street, the Moskvitsh was the cheapest, the least colorful, and the least noticeable. There were tens of thousands just like it on Moscow’s streets. Even if someone spotted them commandeering the little car, the militia would have a verv difficult time picking it out among all the rest.