Red Eagle, page 20
“Yes,” said the man, waving a tablet computer. “It says here you’re picking up three desks.”
“That’s what the boss tells me.”
“What floor?”
Kane shrugged. “You don’t know?”
Dimitri eyed him. “You don’t know?”
“Hey, my asshole of a boss said to come here and pick up three desks, that’s all I know.”
“You don’t have any paperwork?”
“No, he phoned it in. I guess it’s some last-minute thing.”
The man chewed his cheek for a moment. “All I have here is that you’re expected, but I don’t have any details. Do you know what kind of desks they are?”
Kane shrugged again. “No, but we normally deal with restoring antiques and other types of fancy shit that you and I could never hope to sit behind.”
Dimitri laughed, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the door from which he had emerged. “You wouldn’t believe what they’ve got me sitting behind. Listen, if it’s fancy desks, then that’s the executives. Top floor. I’m sure someone there’ll know where the hell these things are.” He pursed his lips. “Actually, when you get to the top floor, turn left. You’ll see a reception area. Go talk to Nadya. Even if she can’t help you, it’s worth spending a few moments with her, if you know what I mean.”
Kane smirked. “Nadya, huh? Thanks for the tip.” He turned to Dawson. “Got everything?”
Dawson nodded. Dimitri’s eyes bulged at the sight of the massive Atlas pushing a soft-sided cart filled with supplies. Russia wasn’t a diverse country, and the muscled man was drawing attention. “Where the hell did you find him?”
Kane grunted. “You don’t want to know, but the guy can lift anything. He’s great on a job like this.”
Dimitri chuckled. “He’s going to intimidate those number geeks upstairs. Hell, he’d even put the fear of God in the guys on the top level.”
Kane picked up on the wording. “You mean those executives with their fancy desks?”
“Nah, nah. I mean the floor above that no one’s allowed on. They think it’s a big secret, but all you have to do is count the floors. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat outside, eating my lunch, counting those damn windows over and over, sure I’ve made a mistake. But I’ve seen some of the guys coming in and out of here, and I wouldn’t want to mess with them.” He lowered his voice. “Whatever you do, if you can’t find the desk on the twelfth floor, don’t go upstairs, go down.”
“Thanks for the advice.” Kane slapped him on the back. “But I’m sure Nadya will get us all hooked up.”
Dimitri laughed, then pointed with his chin toward the gaping loading dock doors. “Through there, freight elevators are on the right. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
“Thanks for your help. I’ll tell Nadya you said hi.”
Dimitri laughed. “She’ll spit in your face if you do. She does not like me, which, oddly enough, just makes her even hotter.”
Kane grinned as he headed for the elevator with the others. “Then I have a feeling I’m going to be madly in love with her by the time I leave.”
“Valkyrie, this is Control. Report.”
Sherrie sat parked in Jack’s vehicle, several hundred yards down the road. Binoculars would be too conspicuous, so she had her phone with a special lens attached propped on her steering wheel as she slowly swiveled it up and down the street. “No activity that I can see, Control. It looks like they’re in, and nobody’s making a fuss about it.”
“Copy that, Valkyrie. If we receive the signal, be prepared to deliver the package immediately.”
She glanced at the deodorant can sitting on the passenger seat. “I’m ready. Don’t worry, I’ve got their backs.”
“No heroics,” said her boyfriend, his firm tone indicating he wasn’t messing around. “You deliver that thing and you leave, then ditch the car in the predetermined location. You do not go inside and attempt a rescue.”
“Yes, dear.”
“I’m serious.”
“Yes, yes, I know. No heroics. God knows, we wouldn’t want a CIA operative to be a hero.”
“Hero is fine, dead hero isn’t.”
“Understood.” And he was right. If four Delta operators and two CIA operatives couldn’t deal with whatever was inside, how the hell did she think she would do any better? Her job was to deliver the fake sarin gas in the hopes it would cause confusion and force an evacuation if something were to go wrong. And at the moment, there was no indication of that. So she would sit here dutifully and be happy about it. And though she didn’t enjoy being relegated to the outside, she understood the reason.
Nobody in Russia would believe that a woman would be picking up furniture for a living.
They rode up the freight elevator in silence, not everyone fluent in Russian. The stained soft-sided cart was loaded with straps and blankets, as any movers would be expected to have, but underneath was a small arsenal. As they headed to the twelfth floor, Kane debated what to do, as it wasn’t where they needed to go. Dimitri’s revelation about a 13th floor had him yearning for comms, yet they couldn’t risk any stray intercepts. Yes, their communications were encrypted, but the fact they were occurring could be detected, and the building could go into a lockdown, or at a minimum, those they were there to target would be forewarned.
He had to change the plan on the fly. He turned to Dawson. “Wait, didn’t he say not to go to the top floor?” He reached out and jabbed the button for the eleventh floor. “I don’t want to run into those guys he was talking about.”
“I think you’re right,” replied Dawson in Russian, playing along. “We can always go up a floor if we’re wrong.”
The others remained silent, though he was certain questions were being asked, especially as those who didn’t understand Russian had no idea where they were headed.
They emerged from the elevators on the eleventh floor. Kane stepped out first and found the small service room empty. He opened the door and checked left then right, finding an empty hallway with numerous closed doors leading off from it. The far end in both directions indicated stairwells, each with a camera mounted in the corner.
He looked at Dawson. “Well, I don’t see any receptionist named Nadya, do you?”
Dawson shook his head. “Nope.”
Kane headed for the stairwell to the left, the others following as the doors closed. “Let’s check just to make sure. I don’t want to risk going to that floor we’re not supposed to go to,” he said, keeping up the Russian cover in case the cameras had ears. They reached the stairwell door and he pushed it open. “Well, this is definitely the wrong floor.”
“Didn’t he say something about the elevator not going to this mystery floor?”
Kane nodded at Dawson. “You know what? I think you’re right. I was so distracted by the prospect of meeting this Nadya, that I got confused. Let’s just take the stairs. I don’t feel like going back and waiting for the elevator.” He pushed through the door and the others followed. As he entered the stairwell, he spotted a camera to his left at the top of the next landing. He reached into the cart with the supplies and pulled out a small canister. “Let’s go,” he said, as he sprinted up the stairs and into the blind spot under the camera. He reached up and pressed down on the nozzle, spraying the lens with a thick black paint.
Immediately, Spock reached into the cart, tossing aside the moving supplies, revealing all their equipment that Jack had provided them with at the hotel. Body armor, masks, Glocks and MP5s, along with flashbangs, explosives, and detonators, were quickly doled out, and in seconds they were battle-ready.
“We’re going up two floors,” said Kane, as they began their charge up the steps. “We’ll probably have to blow the door. Once we get inside, shoot anything with a gun, but remember, we could be totally wrong about what’s on that floor.”
They sprinted past the twelfth floor, which should house the executives, and continued on to the mystery thirteenth floor. Kane smiled slightly at the security system on the door at the top of the landing, something not present on the previous two floors. It would appear that Dimitri was right—there was something happening on the thirteenth floor, a floor the elevator didn’t appear to go to.
He sprayed the camera and motioned for Niner to take care of the door. Niner placed a charge on the locking mechanism and everyone took cover. The door blew with a deafening roar in the confined space, and an alarm sounded. Kane rushed up the few steps and through the door. It was another long hallway with about a dozen doors on each side, some of them thrown open with startled personnel, all male, all fit.
“Intruders at the east stairwell!” shouted one of them as he reached behind his back. Kane put two in his chest, the suppressor muffling the sound, but certainly not silencing it. He continued forward as more people emerged and Jack and the Delta team covered him from behind. Gunfire erupted on his six, but he ignored it, recognizing the distinctive sound of an MP5 discharging, a weapon these people wouldn’t be using. He continued forward, no longer waiting for a weapon to be visible, as it was clear they were in the right place.
Thorn was here, and he had to find her before they had a chance to kill her.
A gun discharged just behind him to his right, taking out a target ahead. He glanced slightly to see that it was Jack. He could hear two of Bravo Team just behind them, and doors being kicked open farther back. A door opened ahead and something was tossed out before it closed.
“Grenade!” he shouted. He sprinted forward and booted the flashbang back in the direction from which it had been tossed, then dropped to the floor with the others, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his hands against his unprotected ears. The explosion was deafening, but they had trained for it. He looked up and cursed as all the doors ahead opened and men emerged with weapons drawn.
Spetsnaz was fighting back.
Sherrie cranked the key, starting up the engine at the gunfire and explosions along with an alarm blaring down the street. There was no doubt the assault was underway, and her comrades detected. “Control, this is Valkyrie. They’ve been discovered. I’m hearing gunfire, explosions, and an alarm. Should I deliver the package, over?”
“Copy that, Valkyrie. Deliver the package. I repeat, deliver the package.”
“Roger that. Delivering the package.” She fit a ski mask over her face then put the car in gear and gunned the engine, merging into traffic. She rolled down her window and grabbed the deodorant can off the passenger seat. She popped off the top, then with her free hand, pressed the spray nozzle against the steering wheel and twisted the entire canister. It hissed as she approached the sensor that Langley had spotted. She switched hands, whipping the fake sarin gas canister out the window toward the device. It rattled along the concrete, coming to rest within a few feet of her target, a colored mist engulfing the area.
More alarms blared, these more ominous than those already going off. She continued toward her exchange point at a normal speed, not wanting to draw any attention. In minutes, she would be rid of the car that no doubt had been caught on camera, and would eventually be identified. She glanced in her rearview mirror and smiled as a flood of suits and short skirts began emerging through the front entrance in a panic.
The building’s security system wasn’t locking itself down, it was ordering an evacuation.
Thorn flinched as an explosion jolted her awake. Gunfire and shouting from outside the room she had been held in since she arrived, had her heart racing with the possibility of rescue or death. Right now, she didn’t care which one, as long as the beatings stopped. They had questioned her for hours, inflicting unimaginable pain, each time they struck her resetting her definition of level ten. The KGB had beaten her in her younger days, but even they had their limits, for they were aware one day they might be receiving the beating.
She had no sense of time, having passed out repeatedly, but during her last beating, when her cheekbone shattered, each blow had her begging for death, and she had finally broken, telling them everything they wanted to know.
Though it was all lies, a rehearsed data dump that sounded factual, but would take time to confirm was a complete fabrication. The torture had stopped as they transcribed the information, then her captors had left the room to check on what she had told them. She had given them a real name for Red Eagle, though it wasn’t Red Eagle. Instead, it was a rather brutal man in the Russian President’s cabinet. It would have them hesitating on a proper investigation, for should they dive too deep and be proven wrong, it would affect their credibility on everything else.
She had expected them to ask about her agents, and after they had everything they wanted on Red Eagle, including where and when they were to meet, they had indeed begun that line of interrogation. She readily gave up another false confession, one well-rehearsed for years, in anticipation of an event exactly like this.
Her lies had delayed them for some time, and from the sounds of what was happening on the other side of the door, it had been long enough. Barely. Borodin had just told her the man she had named as Red Eagle wasn’t even in the country, so couldn’t make any meeting later today, which was unfortunate. She had prepared herself for a new set of beatings, this time expecting something more ferocious than anything she had yet experienced, but from the sound of what was happening, she might just get a reprieve.
Borodin opened the door and popped his head outside, rapidly jerking back as two bullets slammed into the frame. He uttered a string of curses, and she could barely make him out through her swollen eyes as he stared at her, debating what to do.
He activated his comm. “This is Nomad Zero-One to anyone still alive. Prepare to provide cover on my mark. I’ll be exiting out the west stairwell with the prisoner, down the center of the hallway, over.”
Apparently, enough acknowledged his orders to merit a smile. He walked over to her and grabbed her under her armpits, hauling her to her feet. He lifted her up and over his shoulder into a fireman’s carry. She cried out in agony, several ribs cracked or broken. He stepped over to the door and activated his comm. “This is Nomad Zero-One. Execute in three…two…one…Execute!” He paused for a moment with his hand gripping the doorknob before a barrage of gunfire erupted. He pulled open the door and stepped outside, heading to his left. It took her a moment to realize why he appeared to have no fear of getting shot.
Draped over his back, she was his human shield.
“Get down!” ordered Dawson as a dozen new guns entered the battle. His instruction was aimed at Kane and Jack, and the two men did as ordered without hesitation. Dawson and the rest of his team ducked out of the hall and into rooms they had just cleared. He pulled a flashbang from his pocket and popped the pin, then whipped it down the hallway, past the two CIA operatives. “Nine-Banger!” he shouted, warning everyone what was about to come as he stepped back into the room, pressing his fingers against his ears, wishing they had brought ear and eye protection.
The explosion had its desired effect, the hostiles’ weapons momentarily halting. He stepped into the hall, advancing rapidly, picking off his targets as Atlas and Niner sprayed covering fire on either side of him, Spock hanging back to cover their six should someone emerge from an uncleared room.
He passed Kane and Jack, who remained on the floor so the others could continue their covering fire without worrying about hitting them, but they were contributing as well, squeezing off rounds from their prone positions. He spotted the stairwell door at the far end open and he cursed as he recognized Thorn being carried out by one of the hostiles.
“Control, Zero-One. I’ve got eyes on the target. One hostile carrying her out through the west stairwell, over.”
“Copy that, Zero-One,” replied Leroux in his ear. “The package has been delivered. Recommend you pursue the target when safe to do so.”
“Copy that, Control.” He continued forward, the enemy resistance collapsing as their numbers rapidly dwindled. “Bravos Zero-Seven and One-One, head to the freight elevator. Get our vehicle and get it outside.”
“Roger that,” replied Niner.
Dawson didn’t bother glancing over his shoulder to see if they were executing his orders. That would merely mean a split second of his eyes not focusing on what they should be. He squeezed the trigger twice, removing another hostile from the field of battle as Niner and Atlas’ weapons fell silent behind him. Spock rushed up beside him, spraying the area with MP5 fire to keep the Russians off-balance as Dawson continued with his Glock. Kane and Jack took over clearing rooms behind them, and in fewer than sixty more seconds, the entire floor was cleared, not a living soul remaining.
But they were empty-handed.
Dawson sprinted for the door he had spotted Thorn being taken through, and burst through it and into the stairwell. He peered down between the railings and cursed at the sight of scores of hands gripping the rails as the building evacuated. He stuffed his Glock in his belt, then covered it with his shirt. He positioned his MP5 in front of him as he headed down the stairs, and prayed he didn’t get into a firefight in the middle of a group of unarmed civilians, whose only crime was working for the wrong company.
Niner and Atlas rode down the freight elevator in silence as they reloaded and did an inventory check. The elevator chimed on the seventh floor and they both raised their weapons, aiming it at the door as it slid slowly open, revealing a janitor with his cart in front of him. He threw up his hands as a blood-curdling scream greeted them that continued until it faded into an odd wheeze before he finally fainted, collapsing backward. Niner pressed the button, closing the door, unable to suppress his laughter.
“That was like the closest thing I’ve ever seen to Kuffs!”
Atlas glanced at him. “Is this some other vague reference I’m supposed to know?”
“Kuffs, you know, the movie with my man Christian Slater?”
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