Day of Reckoning (47 page)

Her fingers trailed over his shoulder as she turned to leave. “Everything’s going to be okay, Pyotr. It won’t be much longer now.”

11:03 P.M.

The Andropov estate

It was true. All of it, as surreal as it was. Andropov’s men were good, judging by the photos they had succeeded in taking of the POTUS.

Or had been, Harry reflected, staring at the broken bodies laying only scant yards away.

“Satisfied?” Andropov demanded, glancing down at the restraints that still bound his hands and feet.

“No. That might have been good enough an hour ago, Valentin,” Harry replied, pulling himself together—forcing himself to focus on the task at hand. “But now you’re bargaining against the certainty of a painful death—and you can do better than this. I want to know what Tarik Abdul Muhammad is planning.”

“You must understand—I am a facilitator, nothing more.” The oligarch met his eyes with an unwavering gaze. “I was paid to bring the Pakistanis across the border, paid to provide them with weapons. Nothing more.”

“How many men did you smuggle into the United States?”

“Five.”

“What’s their target?”

Andropov shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Something there in his eyes, the shadow of a falsehood. He was lying. And Americans were going to die because of his deceit.

Harry’s eyes flashed with anger. “I gave you a warning,” he whispered, opening the phone and beginning to type in the number. “I told you what would happen if you lied to me.”

“Wait.”

“Why should I?” Harry demanded, turning his head to spit on the carpet. “Give me a reason, Valentin. One good reason, because I’m running out of patience and you’re running out of time.”

“They’re going to strike Las Vegas,” Andropov replied desperately. “They paid me to supply them with intelligence on the operational capabilities of the LVMPD. On Christmas Day.”

“Vegas is a big place. What was their target? What was the means of their attack?”

“I don’t have that information. I truly don’t. You have to believe me.”

Harry laughed. “No, Valentin. I don’t. You see, that’s the problem with lying to someone. Once you’ve been caught, they never trust you again. That leaves you with a choice: never lie…or never get caught. Unfortunately, that choice is now in your rear-view mirror. What weapons did you supply to the Pakistanis?”

The Russian’s face was soaked with sweat, fear filling his eyes. “Body armor, fully-automatic Kalashnikovs, fifty pounds of C-4. And that is all I know, I swear it.”

Was it the truth? Hard to say—and only one way left to find out. Harry punched SEND, raising the phone to his ear…

11:14 P.M.

Southbound I-5

California

Traffic was heavy on the I-5 as the pair of Suburbans rolled south, with Korsakov in the lead vehicle. His decision had been made—
alea iacta est
, as Caesar would have put it.

The face of Pavel Nevaschin rose before his eyes, a reminder of the friends this contract had cost him. And he would see it through to the end, no matter what he found at Andropov’s estate. For they had been played, of that he was sure.

The phone in his pocket vibrated suddenly, startling him from his thoughts.
Andropov?!

“Yes?” he answered cautiously. “I’ve been trying to reach you for several hours.”

“Then you’re going to have to wait a while longer,” an unfamiliar voice replied. “Valentin asked me to give you a message—he’s terminating your contract. Shutting the operation down. Time to go home, Sergei.”

“Who is this?” Korsakov demanded, his face hardening at the audacity of the man’s words.

“You know my name.”

And he did. The assassin closed his eyes, struggling to control his voice. “Then know this, Mr. Nichols. You killed a friend of mine in Virginia, a man who saved my life in Chechnya.”

“Fortunes of war, Sergei. Don’t ask me to regret his death.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. But if you think that taking Andropov hostage is going to make me stand down, that’s a decision you need to rethink.”

“Hostage?” the voice on the other end of the phone demanded incredulously. “He’s not a hostage. Question is…do you know the type of traitor you’ve been working for?”

“I don’t understand,” Korsakov retorted, motioning with his free hand for Viktor to hand him the laptop. There—on the screen, the message from Yuri.
Twenty minutes out
.

“Your buddy Andropov—he’s been doing deals with the hajjis. An alliance with The Base to launch an attack against this country.”

The base. Al-Qaeda
. The ex-
Spetsnaz
assassin swore, his mind racing as he struggled to process the information. If it were true…

“None of that changes what is between us,” he said finally. “I will deal with Andropov when I see him.”

“I don’t think you will,” the voice replied, a cold certainty in its tone. He could hear the slide of a pistol being racked back. “See you on the other side, Sergei.”

And the phone went dead.

11:20 P.M.

The Andropov estate

Beverly Hills,

California

Harry dropped the phone to the bloodstained carpet of the study, smashing the screen beneath a booted foot.

During the entire conversation, the oligarch had remained stone-faced, silent. Nothing left to bargain with.

Of no further value.

Holding the Colt in one hand, he reached forward, using his combat knife to slice through the restraints holding Andropov against the chair. “Get up.”

As he took a step back, the oligarch struggled to his feet, rubbing his wrists to restore circulation. “Well, you’ve done it now, haven’t you?” Andropov asked, a bitter smile playing at his lips.

“Welcome to the end of the road, Valentin.” The Colt came up in Harry’s hand—the long black suppressor aimed straight at Andropov’s head. “On your knees.”

“
Nyet
,” Andropov replied, seeming to summon up some measure of defiance from deep within himself. “If I’m going to die, I’ll die on my feet. And if you’re going to kill me, you’ll have to look me in the eye.”

Harry traded glances with Vasiliev, shrugging. “Have it your way.”

His finger took up the slack, the big Colt recoiling back into his hand. Blood and fire…

11:32 P.M.

The abandoned mansion

“It’s done,” Harry announced, sweeping back into the kitchen with Vasiliev at his heels. He deposited the thumb drive beside Carol’s computer. “We have our evidence.”

She didn’t respond, her eyes focused intently on the screen in front of her.

“Andropov?” He looked up at the sound of Han’s voice to see the former SEAL enter the room from the other side, the SCAR slung over his shoulder.

“Dead,” Harry replied. “What’s going on?”

Carol entered a few rapid keystrokes, her eyes widening as a window opened on-screen. “We have a problem. You were ID’d.”

He looked at the alert indicated by her cursor. It was an all points bulletin—for him—giving the address of the Andropov estate.

Who are you?
Had it been surprise he had seen in the deputy’s eyes…or recognition? Had he seen it and chosen to ignore it, knowing the alternative was the unthinkable? Killing a cop…

No time to find answers to those questions. Not now. “What’s their ETA?”

“The nearest car? Eight minutes out.”

“Pack everything up,” Harry ordered, his words clipped. “We have to be out of here before they seal off the block. Sammy, help Carol move things out to the van. Alexei and I will get our guest ready for transport.”

He turned, motioning for Vasiliev to follow him as he moved down the long hallway toward the master bathroom, their footsteps thudding against the bare, stripped floor.

The Coleman was flickering, the flame sending long shadows glancing off the tiled walls as it ran low of fuel. An eerie sight.

Pyotr’s head came up at the sound of their entrance, his blindfolded eyes endeavoring in vain to seek them out.

Harry pulled his combat knife from its sheath, slashing through the zip ties that pinned the boy’s legs to the chair.

“What are you planning to do with him?” Carol’s voice. He looked up to see her standing in the doorway, a haunted look in her eyes.

“We’ll take him with us—drop him once we’re out of the state. It will take them hours to find him. Now, get ready.”

“I’ll do it,
tovarisch
,” Vasiliev interjected. “I can drive around for a few hours and throw the hounds off the scent. It’s past time we were parting company.”

Harry hesitated for a long moment, glancing from Carol to the Russian. His mind screaming danger. He knew what Vasiliev was planning, knew it as certainly as if the words had been spoken.

Pyotr is part of the contract
.

Do it
, a voice admonished from the dark shadows of his mind.
She’ll never be the wiser
.

He didn’t
know
. Not really. That was what plausible deniability was all about, the ability to redefine the line between truth and deceit.

To make “truth” what you wanted it to be.

“No,” he said finally, his throat dry as he spoke the words, staring Vasiliev full in the face. “No, you won’t.”

The knife still in his hand, he turned his back on the Russian, bending down to cut through the ties securing Pyotr’s wrists to the chair.

He heard Carol scream a warning, the thunderous report of a pistol battering his eardrums. Warm, viscous liquid spattered against his face and clothing.

Death walked among them, he realized, thinking for a moment that it was his own.
Not this time
.

His ears ringing, Harry rose from behind Pyotr’s corpse, his movements slow—as if in a dream. His eyes fell upon Vasiliev across the room, the pistol still leveled in the Russian’s hand. A faint whisp of hot white smoke curling from the barrel of the Grach.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Vasiliev said, a smile crossing his face. “But the Kremlin was insistent. Father
and
son.”

Something snapped. Harry launched himself across the blood-drenched tile floor, the Colt coming out of its holster as he did so. He saw Vasiliev’s finger tighten around the trigger, expected him to fire. Expected Death to come for him as well.

He hit the Russian at a full run, slamming the older man against the wall of the bathroom— knocking the wind from his body. The Grach clattered to the tiles.

“He was off-limits,” he hissed, his fingers entwined in Vasiliev’s collar. “He was
innocent
.”

“Innocent?” The Russian laughed. “And who decides that? Men. Men just like you and I, Harry…the men who send
us
out to play God. We’re both of us the same.”

No
. That wasn’t true. He grimaced as if in pain, shoving the muzzle of the Colt into the soft flesh beneath Vasiliev’s chin. “This ends now, Alexei. All the men you’ve killed over the years—no more. It ends tonight.”

There was a look of resignation in the Russian’s eyes. The weary look of a man at the end of a long journey. No more laughter.

“Tell Anya that I loved her. You’ll do that, won’t you?” he asked, struggling to breathe, the gun restricting his airflow.

Anya
. The face from the photograph flickered back through Harry’s mind. Vasiliev’s wife, her eyes haunting him. Those eyes full of love.
Love
for the man before him.

He paled, taking a step back from Vasiliev, breathing heavily. His voice trembled as he spoke.

“Leave, Alexei,” he warned, gesturing with the barrel of his pistol. “Leave before I kill you.”

Vasiliev leaned there against the wall for a long moment, massaging his sore throat, regarding Harry soberly. “Of course,
tovarisch
. As you wish.”

Kill him.
The impulse came suddenly, without warning and without reason—a premonition of danger entering his soul. Kill him and have done with it.

It was as if the shroud of the future had been pulled back for but a scant moment.
Kill him
.

And yet he found himself incapable of pulling the trigger. He watched the Russian go as if in a haze, smelling the stench of death pervading the room—the presence of a tangible evil.

The straight-eight sights of his Colt centered on the back of Alexei’s head as he reached the door—the perfect target for a scant moment of time.

And then he was gone. Harry stood there staring at the empty doorway for a long moment, a strange sense of regret washing over him. A regret that had nothing to do with the murder of Pyotr.

Pyotr
. He turned to see Carol on her knees beside the boy’s broken body, his blood staining her shirt. “You knew,” she whispered, shaking her head as tears rolled down her cheeks. “You
knew
.”

It felt as if a knife had gone through his body. A thousand excuses rose to his lips, but they all rang hollow.

He had made his deal with the devil he knew, and Pyotr had paid the price. It was that simple.

And none of it mattered in this moment. “We have to go,” he said, reaching down for her wrist.

She shook off his hand, her fingers stroking Pyotr’s lifeless arm. “You swore that he would come to no harm.”

Yes
.
He had. Her hand came up to brush away her tears in an angry gesture, leaving a streak of blood in its wake. “Does this look like ‘no harm’ to you?”

Sirens in the distance. The rhythmic
thwap-thwap-thwap
of an inbound helicopter. They had to be gone, moments of freedom slipping away the longer they lingered. He slipped the Colt back into its holster, reaching down to grasp her shoulder, pulling her roughly to her feet.

Run
…

11:40 P.M.

Beverly Hills, California

Night flying was something that had never appealed to Yuri. Too many memories of operations gone wrong—missions sabotaged by insufficient intelligence or indecisive superiors. He sat just back of the pilot in the Sikorsky S-76 as the helicopter swept over Beverly Hills toward Andropov’s estate, one thousand feet over the housetops.

Lifeless. It was the first word that came to his mind as the mansion entered his view through the side windows of the executive helicopter. Everything was dark, no flicker of light from the windows. Nothing.

“Take us around for another pass over the neighborhood,” the man from Leningrad instructed. “Lower this time.”

The pilot, a young—almost boyish—Russian with an unrecognizable American accent, shook his head. “Can’t do that—FAA regs. A thousand feet over residential neighborhoods. Andropov’s neighbors…well, they all got nearly as much money as he does and a propensity for complaining to go with it.”

Yuri shook his head at his comrades, leaning forward until his face was only inches away from the pilot’s. “Do I look like a man
who cares about your ‘regs’ or
his
neighbors?”

He drew back the slide of his Glock deliberately, his eyes never leaving the pilot’s face as the young man’s eyes widened. “Take us down.”

The pilot nodded wordlessly, easing the helicopter’s nose forward and circling around for another pass, this time at four hundred feet. It was then that Yuri saw it, a faint movement in the faint glow of a streetlight below. A gray panel van…

He slid his phone open, fingers moving clumsily over the small buttons.
Contact made
.

12:03 P.M.

Beverly Hills, California

The taillights of a minivan glowed red in front of him and Harry shifted into the right lane, accelerating. He was going too fast—he knew that. Running from something he couldn’t escape.

Himself.

One who would fight with monsters must take care that he does not become one
. What
had
he become?

The answer to that question was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
Not now. Innocents died in war, had ever since the dawn of time. Pyotr was collateral damage—nothing more, he thought, his face hardening.

They had the intel they had sought. And no way to act on it. They needed support, as risky as that was going to be.

No doubt the bodies of Valentin Andropov and his bodyguards had already been discovered. His son’s would take the police a few more hours, but find him they would.

And once more the dragnet would be thrown out. “Do you hear that?” Han asked quietly from the van’s front passenger seat.

He didn’t have to clarify his question. Harry knew exactly what he was talking about. Had known ever since they had left the neighborhood of Andropov’s estate.

A helicopter. He glanced out the window of the panel van, endeavoring to catch a glimpse of it against the night sky. Waiting for the finger of a police searchlight to reach down, pinpointing them in the midst of the traffic. For red-and-blue lights to appear in his rear-view mirror, sirens wailing.

Nothing
. And that brought with it a no less troubling conclusion.

Korsakov?

His eyes returned to the road, watching the signs carefully. Two miles. Only a few minutes till he could merge onto the I-10. Lose themselves in the interstate.

Only a few more minutes…

12:47 P.M.

The I-5

Burbank, California

A stern chase is a long chase
, Korsakov thought, calling back to mind the words of his father, a sailor in the Red Navy. And this one was going to be very long. The speedometer needle of the Suburban held steady at ninety-five miles per hour as the SUV flew down the interstate. They weren’t going to intercept in time.

“Can you give me any satellite coverage?” he asked, glancing in the overhead mirror.

He could see Viktor biting his lip, a rough shock of hair fallen over the boy’s face as he worked at the laptop. “I’m working on it—may have to be a commercial sat.”

That would provide the bare minimum of coverage in the best of times—and provide no help at all at this hour of the night.

Korsakov looked down at his phone, at the latest message from Yuri, trying to conceal his frustration. The helicopter was running out of fuel, only fifteen minutes away from breaking off the chase.

He glanced at the GPS read-out again, a plan forming in his mind. It was a desperate shot, but for all his personal differences with Yuri, the man was good.

The assassin’s thumbs moved over the small keyboard of the phone, hesitating for a moment before finally pressing SEND.

They had no back-up plan.

12:51 A.M.

The helicopter

“Look, I was told not to ask you any questions, but we’re nearly bingo-fuel here. This is a ten-million dollar chopper and it belongs to Mr. Andropov, not you.”

Yuri shook his head, ignoring the pilot’s protest as he glanced down at the glowing screen of the phone in his hand. Had Korsakov gone mad?