The perfect assassin, p.17
The Perfect Assassin, page 17
I had a day’s growth of beard. My eyes looked hollow, and my skin was pale. The gash on my head was red and angry looking. I’d have a scar there for sure. Not that anybody would ever see it. Nobody was going to find me. Not here. Not ever.
I stripped off my clothes and lay down on the nearest cot. I pulled the wool blanket over me. I realized that I’d never felt so alone. I thought back over the last six months—about how Kira had changed my body, and my brain, and my life.
For what?
Maybe I should have hated her for leaving me in this position, but I didn’t. Somehow, I felt that I’d let her down, and I couldn’t believe I’d never see her again.
It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t fair. After all we’d been through together, how could she go and die without me?
“Wrong question,” I could hear her saying. And then, “You have only yourself.”
I turned my face to the pillow and started sobbing like a baby.
CHAPTER 80
Eastern Russia
THE MAIN GROUNDS OF the school compound were dark, except for the glow of security lights from the main building. After his stop in the nursery to admire the new enrollee, Kamenev walked across the yard toward the far edge of the property, beyond the firing range and the oval dirt track. There, at the end of an asphalt strip nearly half a mile long, he waited. Before long, he heard a low whistle in the sky and saw a set of navigation lights beaming through the cloud cover in the distance. Kamenev reached into a metal junction box and flipped a switch. Rows of bright blue lights came to life on both sides of the asphalt, forming bright stripes.
The compact fighter jet touched down at the far end of the runway at 150 miles per hour. By the time it reached the apron where Kamenev was standing, it was rolling to a gentle stop. The engine shut down. The cockpit hood folded back. Irina unfastened her harness and pushed herself out of the pilot’s seat.
Her face was bruised and she favored her left leg as she walked across the tarmac. Kamenev stepped forward, expecting his usual thorough debrief, but Irina brushed past him without even looking up.
“Target destroyed,” she said numbly. “No survivors.”
CHAPTER 81
Gaborone, Botswana
IT WAS JUST past noon when Jamelle Maina finally opened her eyes. She rolled to the side and tossed back her top sheet. Her body was covered in sweat. Since her baby had been taken, she’d had an impossible time getting to sleep. But last night’s pills and wine had finally knocked her out. Now the midday heat was bringing her around.
She swung her long, muscular legs out of bed and walked over to the boxy air conditioner in the window of her tiny bedroom. The machine was rumbling, but the fan wasn’t blowing. With her bare feet, Jamelle could feel a small puddle of warm water on the floor underneath. She banged the unit with her fist, but that just made the rumbling louder.
She walked to the bathroom, turned on the sink tap, and wiped her forehead and neck with a wet towel. She stared into the mirror. Her face was drawn, and her eyes were red. She felt like she looked a decade older than her twenty-three years.
Another week had passed without word from the police—and without contact of any kind from the private investigator. In the beginning, Devos had returned her calls and texts, but now all she got was his voice-mail greeting.
Jamelle flopped back onto the bed and turned toward the wall, staring at a photo she kept taped at eye level, so close she could touch it. Her little girl. Jamelle ran her finger over the picture and imagined the feel of her baby’s skin, the smell of her hair, the sound of her laugh. As tears dripped down her cheeks, Jamelle called her daughter’s name softly, over and over again. Like a prayer.
CHAPTER 82
Eastern Russia
ON THE REMOTE peninsula two continents west, dawn was still several hours away. In a small room buried beneath the school’s main building, security officers Balakin and Petrov were eight hours into their shift, their eyes bleary from staring at screens all night long. It was boring work. The only activity had been a solitary fox crossing the perimeter, its eyes glowing yellow on the night-vision camera. Everything else was quiet and secure, as usual.
Balakin pulled a cigarette from his pack and lit it. He leaned back in his chair, took a deep drag, and exhaled toward the ceiling. A forbidden pleasure. This was the one place on the property he could smoke with impunity, in violation of Kamenev’s strict prohibition. The room’s powerful vent filters removed every trace of smoke and odor. Petrov used the soundproof room to indulge in a vice of his own—one that drove Balakin to distraction.
“How can you stand it?” Balakin shouted. He was referring to the German techno music blaring from Petrov’s Bluetooth speaker.
“Keeps me awake,” Petrov called back, bobbing his head in time to the pounding beat.
“Hey!” Balakin shouted.
“All right, all right!” said Petrov. “I’ll turn it down…”
“No!” said Balakin. “Look!”
He was leaning over the console, his nose just inches from one of the monitors—the one showing the outside of the explosives shed on the far side of the property. “Shed” was a misnomer. It was a pillbox-shaped building with walls two feet thick and six feet of solid steel descending into the ground to prevent burrowing, animal or otherwise.
Balakin dropped his cigarette through a metal floor grate and rolled his chair forward. The shed was just a blocky outline in the darkness, but there was a bright flare around one side of the heavy metal door, so strong it almost whited out the camera lens. Petrov shot his partner a look. Balakin nodded.
Petrov reached to the far side of the console and pounded a red alarm button. They both stood and tightened their gun belts. Balakin turned the handle to open the vacuum-sealed door. Outside, they jumped into matching black ATVs and raced toward the location.
By the time they arrived, the whole scene was swarming with a dozen other ATVs, their headlights shining across all sides of the shed. The student squad on call had responded to the alarm in record time. They seemed excited that, for once, it was apparently not just a drill. When Balakin pulled up, the students greeted him with unsettling wide-eyed smiles. He nodded back. He avoided the students whenever possible. They made his skin crawl.
Petrov pulled up right behind. He jumped out of his vehicle and walked to the building. He placed his hand on the seam of the metal door. It was blackened and pitted, but otherwise intact. No intrusion. No structural damage. All around the building, ATV engines revved and roared, blocking out any other sounds. Balakin rolled his ATV forward and swiveled the powerful spotlight beam across the thick woods in the distance.
He saw nothing but trees.
CHAPTER 83
The Bering Sea
I THOUGHT THE banging noises were part of a dream, but when I woke up, they were still there. I didn’t know how long I’d slept. Maybe hours. Maybe days. The only light came from the fluorescent tubes overhead. No clue about the world outside. My whole body felt bruised and sore. My skin was still crusty from the salt water, and my throat felt like sandpaper.
I reached into my backpack and pulled out my lone bottle of water. As I guzzled it down, I heard the sounds again. They were coming from the other side of the fortress.
I rolled my aching body off the cot and walked around to the other side of the partition into the main space. I started following the sounds. They had more definition now. Rhythmic. Hollow. Metallic. I looked up and down for something that might have come loose, maybe something knocking into a beam. Nothing. I looked for pumps or heating units. Again nothing. Except for the sleeping area, the fortress was wide open.
The sounds reverberated through the space. I froze in place and tried to triangulate the source. Then I took a few steps forward. The sounds were louder now. Closer.
I was almost at the other end of the vast room when I felt a vibration under my feet. The planks I was standing on trembled in sync with the noise. A few steps farther, I saw a metal hatch set flush with the floor. There was a handle near the top. I pulled on it, but the hatch door was rusted to the frame. I braced my legs and pulled again. The handle ripped off in my hand. I leaned down. No question now. The banging was coming from underneath the hatch. Like somebody or something was trying to get in.
I was out of patience. I grabbed a crowbar and jammed the edge under the floorboards on one side of the hatch. I worked the bar back and forth, splintering the wood until I’d exposed the edge of the metal. I took a deep breath, hooked my hands underneath, and ripped out the entire hatch, frame and all. It fell back onto the planks with a huge bang, leaving a gaping hole in the floor.
I looked down through the opening. I was staring at a black metal object floating in a large chamber of seawater right below the level of the floor. It was about twice the size of an oil drum. One side was banging against an underwater support post. That was the noise.
I dropped to my knees for a closer look. It wasn’t a drum—more like a stubby tube, with tapered ends and a round lid in the center.
A submarine.
CHAPTER 84
Eastern Russia
“I SHOULD HAVE been called sooner,” said Irina, her voice steely.
She stared straight ahead as Petrov and Balakin led her to the front of the explosives shed. Irina was running on two hours of sleep and she was in a dark mood. As she approached the building, students were still circling it in their ATVs. When they recognized Irina, they cut their engines and stiffened in their seats.
Dawn was just rising over the mountains, and the west-facing half of the structure was still in shadow. Irina stared at the damaged door. She leaned in and stroked her index finger over the sooty residue on the metal. She sniffed it.
“Old-school thermite,” she said. “Very old.”
Thermite was no match for titanium. Even the weakest students would know that. The intrusion attempt had been amateurish. Almost like somebody was playing games, or trying to attract attention. She turned to Petrov.
“You have video?” she asked. He nodded.
Back in the basement security center, Balakin watched nervously as Petrov cued up the segment from the early hours. Irina had her chair rolled up tight against the console. The image was dark, the outlines of the shed barely visible. Suddenly, the explosive flare illuminated one side of the building, blowing out the picture for a few seconds before fading back into darkness.
“Stop it there!” said Irina.
Petrov hit the Pause button. Irina leaned in.
“Toggle the last two frames.”
Petrov switched back and forth. Irina’s jaw clenched. At the far-left edge of the second frame, a figure was partially silhouetted by the dying flare. It was a woman’s figure. The head was surrounded by a halo of copper-colored curls.
Irina’s fists clenched the console in disbelief. Her jaw tightened. She wasn’t just angry. She was humiliated. And that was worse. She realized that for the first time in her entire life, she had failed to complete an assignment.
As Irina shoved her chair back, the wheels hit the metal grate in the floor. She glanced down and spotted a flake of ash hanging on the edge. She looked over at Petrov, then at Balakin.
“Somebody’s been smoking in here,” she said evenly.
Both guards blanched, but Irina noticed that Balakin’s eyes blinked faster. She stood up and walked to his chair. She crouched behind him, hands on his shoulders. She could feel him trembling. She leaned in close to his ear and whispered.
“Smoking will kill you,” she said.
Balakin released a nervous laugh.
“Don’t worry,” said Irina. “I won’t say a word.”
Balakin exhaled in a heavy rush. Irina felt his whole upper body relax under her touch. She cupped her forearm around his chin and yanked violently, breaking his neck in an instant. The pop of his vertebrae sounded like a whip crack.
Petrov flew out of his chair and stood shaking against the wall. Irina released her grip and let Balakin’s body slide onto the floor. She advanced slowly toward Petrov.
He reached down and fingered his gun holster. Irina rested her hand lightly on top of his. She was smiling now, strangely polite and composed.
“Plant him in the woods,” she said, “or sink him in the lake. Your choice.”
CHAPTER 85
The Bering Sea
FOR A SOLID hour, I went back and forth in my mind. I was so hungry I couldn’t think straight. I was getting weaker by the minute, and my mind was getting foggy. I knew I had to make the most of my body and my brain cells while they were still functioning.
The way I saw it, I had two choices, both of them bad. I could resign myself to dying a slow death inside my ancestor’s artificial iceberg. Or I could take a chance on getting out—in a machine that might kill me. I paced around the gaping hole in the floor, looking down into the chamber of seawater, watching the submarine bobbing in its berth. The more I stared at it, the more I felt like Doc Savage was taunting me—or daring me.
Then I thought about Kira again, and about the battle we were supposed to face together. She’d never told me her plan. Maybe she didn’t have one. Maybe she assumed that we’d figure it out as a team. I definitely didn’t feel up to saving the world on my own, but I realized that if I had a chance to complete the mission, I had to try. For her.
In other words, I didn’t really have a choice.
I grabbed my backpack. I tossed in a hammer, a screwdriver, and a pair of pliers. I grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and the wool blanket from the cot. I rustled through the rusty devices on the worktables, but nothing else looked useful.
I stood for a minute at the edge of the hole in the floor, then stepped onto the top of the sub. The metal shell was curved and slippery, and the whole thing shifted under my weight. I grabbed the edge of the lid. I figured that opening it was going to take all my strength. But it flipped up with no effort, as easy as popping a beer can. There was a thick steel wheel on the inside of the lid. I used it to steady myself as I lowered myself into the cabin.
Once I was inside, I could barely move. Even with my old physique, it would have been a tight fit. The only light came through the hatch from the space above. I took a chance and flipped a row of switches on the inside curve of the submarine wall. A row of light bars popped on along the sides, casting a weird bluish glow. I felt a sick wave of claustrophobia. The whole idea seemed suicidal. Suck it up, Doctor, I told myself.
I reached up and pulled the hatch shut. I cranked the wheel to the right and heard the opening seal tight. I felt like I had just locked myself in a tomb. The sub was still banging against the support post, but now I was hearing it from the inside—a metallic echo. Like a bell tolling.
I wedged myself into the single seat and looked around. For all I knew, I was sitting in an unfinished model or a decoy. I wasn’t even sure it had a working engine. I looked around, trying to read Doc Savage’s mind from the distance of a century. Some of the controls seemed obvious. I assumed the metal stick in front of me was the speed control, and that the foot pedals turned the rudder.
I ran my fingers over the maze of buttons and switches on the small console in front of me. A few of them actually had labels. One said PWR. I hovered my finger over it, then pressed. I heard a low whine behind me, then loud thumping. The thumping got faster and faster until it turned into a throbbing hum. The whole sub vibrated and I could see white bubbles blasting up from underneath.
I took a guess that RLS meant “Release.” I pressed the button. I heard metal parts grinding and felt something give way. Suddenly the sub dropped a few feet lower in the water and rolled to the left. I pushed forward on the stick between my knees. The engine hum turned into a growl. The sub righted itself and began to glide forward out of the chamber.
All I could see through the small porthole in front was greenish-blue water filled with whitish fragments, like dandruff falling from the underside of the fortress. In a few seconds, I could see that I was emerging from under the far edge of the structure into the open sea. The water turned a lighter shade of green. I exhaled slowly.
If this was my tomb, at least it was moving.
CHAPTER 86
Eastern Russia
ON THE FIRST floor of the school’s main building, an austere lecture hall now doubled as a ready-room. It was crowded with students, the school’s most senior and seasoned, the ultimate survivors, male and female. They were all dressed in tactical gear. Nobody sat. They were all too nervous and eager. The news of the attempted intrusion had spread through the student body, but only the elite—these twenty—had been chosen for primary pursuit. The room hummed with anticipation.
The side door to the classroom flew open and Irina walked in, her face grim. The room instantly fell silent. Irina walked to the front and looked over the class. She had trained most of these students herself, and she knew they were ready. She clicked a controller and brought up an image on the monitor at the front of the room. It showed a close-up of the blackened metal door.
“You all know we had an attempted breach early this morning,” she said. “Unusual. And unacceptable. But we also happen to know who’s responsible.” She paused. “It was somebody who lived here and trained here.”
The students eyed one another nervously. Was this a setup? A test? Was there a traitor in the room?
Irina clicked to the next image—the grainy frame of the woman’s silhouette. The students leaned forward, trying to digest every pixel of information. Irina let them stew for a few seconds, then clicked again. The next image was sharp and clear. It was an enhancement of a surveillance photo taken in Chicago. It showed Kira alone on a city street. Her copper curls glowed in the light.
