The hum of the electrified fence suddenly ceases. They’ve turned it off from the inside and the gate begins to open automatically.
Another Taiga snowmobile, driven by a lone rider, sails past me and goes through the open gate. A few seconds later, a black Mercedes follows. I make sure no other vehicles are lagging behind and then I roll my body through the gate as it starts to close. I lie still and peer around to make sure I wasn’t seen. So far, so good. Now’s the time to play chameleon and dispose of my white outer-suit.
After stuffing the garment into my backpack, I get up and creep closer, staying to the shadows. Positioning myself behind a boarded-up water well, I watch the newcomers as they stop their vehicles in front of the small building. The guard I saw earlier goes over to the hangar and unlocks the door. He swings it open and the guy on the snowmobile guides his ride inside. After a moment, he walks out and the first guard closes the hangar door—but doesn’t lock it. The Mercedes’ driver keeps the motor running as four men get out of the car. One of them appears to be a Russian army general. I change the lenses in my trident goggles, focus on the men, and positively identify the officer as General Stefan Prokofiev. One of the other guys looks like Oskar Herzog, but if it’s him he’s grown a silly beard. The third guy I don’t recognize. He’s smaller than the others and has long, flowing black hair. Looks kind of like Rasputin. The fourth man is another soldier, probably just a bodyguard for the general. I quickly snap some photos with my OPSAT and beam them to Washington via satellite uplink with encrypted burst transmission.
The door to the main building opens and I see two men standing just beyond the threshold. They wave to the four-some as the men walk inside. Hands are shaken and then the door slams shut.
The driver gets out of the car and greets the snowmobile rider. They speak in Russian, probably talking about the weather. The guard offers the rider a cigarette and they walk around the building. As soon as they’re out of sight, I run toward the hangar—roughly twenty meters—and peek inside the door. Where an airplane once rested, the place is now full of crates, snowmobiles, and a couple of cars. Nothing else of interest. I then reach into the backpack and grab one of the nifty homing beacons that Third Echelon created for me. It looks like a hockey puck, only smaller. It’s magnetized and is activated by a twist of the top. I quickly move back outside to the Mercedes, crouch behind it, and place the device on the underside. There is a soft clink as the magnet meets metal. I push a button on my OPSAT to make sure it’s receiving the signal.
Okay, let’s get inside the building now. I try the knob but it’s locked. So I knock and whistle loudly. My Russian isn’t great but it’ll do for short innocuous phrases in case I need to converse with someone.
I hear footsteps and the sound of the guard unlocking the door. It swings open and I reach for him, pull him outside, and give him a head bonk he won’t forget. The sharp edge of my goggles slices his nose a bit but he’ll live. I drag his unconscious form around to the side of the hangar and hide him behind a generator attached to the building. I then hurry back to the front door, turn off the night vision, and step inside.
The corridor is empty but I can hear angry voices in a room down the hallway. There’s a washroom next to it, so I go in there and shut the door. I open a pouch on my leg and remove a microphone with a suction cup attached to it. I lick the cup and stick it on the wall, then adjust my OPSAT to pick up the signal. Through my headset I can now hear what they’re saying. The Russian is difficult to pick up but I can understand some of it. For good measure I start recording it just as Carly St. John, Third Echelon’s acting technical director, speaks through the implants.
“I’ll try to give you a rough translation as we go, Sam,” she says, “then later we can do the whole thing.”
Either the general or Herzog is doing most of the talking. He’s giving the two men from the building a royal chewing out.
“It’s something about ‘failure to do this and failure to do that,’ ” Carly says. “And ‘a security breach.’ They’re ‘closing down the facility.’ ”
One of the men protests and sounds very frightened. Apparently he’s about to lose more than just his job.
BLAM! BLAM! The two gunshots startle me. They’re followed by the sound of two bodies hitting the floor. I hear the general or Herzog mutter something and then the four newcomers leave the room. They march down the hall, past the washroom, and exit the building. The place is dead silent.
I open the washroom door and look into the hallway. Empty. I quickly move to the killing room and sure enough, the two men who had greeted the general and his entourage are lying in pools of blood. I snap some photos and then move toward the front door. I gently crack it open and peer outside. The general is barking orders into a radio as the four men get inside the Mercedes. The driver has returned with his snowmobile rider pal.
“You’ve got more company, Sam,” Lambert says. “Three vehicles approaching. Better get out of there now.”
He’s right—I see more headlights coming through the gate at the other side of the compound. Military vehicles. Two trucks and a tank! I feel my heartbeat increase as the trucks pull in front of the building as the Mercedes takes off. At least eight armed soldiers—Russian, not Ukrainian—jump out of the vehicles and rush toward the front door—exactly where I’m standing.
Well, hell. I turn and run to the back of the building, past the killing room and into a space where several cots are set up—obviously the living quarters for the men who no longer work here. There’s a grille covering a ventilation shaft high on the wall. As I hear the soldiers enter the building and stomp along the corridor, I climb on one of the cots, pull off the grille, and climb inside. But I’m too late. One of the soldiers enters the room and sees my feet disappear into the shaft. He shouts loudly for others to join him. A deafening gunshot blasts part of the wall away behind me.
I snake along the shaft as fast as I can. Luckily I come to a junction just as the soldier points his pistol inside the shaft to fire at me. The shaft turns upward here so I leap above the gunfire and begin the climb to the roof. The soldier doesn’t follow me. I’m sure he figures they can catch me when I emerge at the top.
The grille on the roof doesn’t come off easily. I’m forced to draw my Five-seveN and shoot the corners of the damned thing. I holster my gun and then give the grille a good pounding with my gloved fist and it finally loosens. I pull myself up and out onto the snow-caked roof. The gunfire commences immediately, the rounds zipping inches over my head. The angle isn’t great for the soldiers so I’m at an advantage as long as I lie low. I reach into another trouser pocket and retrieve an emergency flare. It’s not much but hopefully it will be bright enough to blind the soldiers temporarily. I aim it to the sky and set it off. The flare bursts over the compound, violently brightening the darkness. The gunfire ceases momentarily. I rise and scramble across the roof to the other side, near the hangar. It’s not a big jump—I leap off the roof and land in a snow-bank. I drop, roll, and come up unharmed. But right in front of me is the snowmobile rider. He’s halfway in the process of drawing a Makarov when I deliver a Krav Maga ax kick to his chest. This propels him backward and he drops the pistol. I move forward and give him another kick in the groin, which makes him completely docile. I kneel beside him, search his pockets, and find the keys to the snowmobile.
“Thanks,” I say in Russian. “I’ll return it. Someday.”
I rise and run to the hangar, taking just a moment to look back and see what’s going on. Some of the soldiers are apparently removing files, documents, maps, and computers from the building. Cleaning house. The Shop is definitely closing down this facility. The Russian tank, one of the older T-72s, is moving to a position from where it can fire at the place. They’re going to demolish the hangar and wipe out all traces of its existence. The rest of the soldiers, of course, are looking for me.
The Taiga snowmobile is sitting where the rider left it earlier. I mount it, insert the key, and s
tart her up. The Taiga is a lightweight sports model, just what I need to make a quick getaway. The thing picks up on its two steering skis and one track and bolts out of the hangar. Naturally, the soldiers spot me and shout in surprise. I hunker down and speed past the tank, knock over a soldier, and head for the gate.
Machine-gun fire riddles the snow around me. A round smashes into the rear fender over the track and for a moment I think the snowmobile’s been crippled. The vehicle coughs and jerks but then I manage to regain control. I push the speed up to sixty as I fly out the gate.
Behind me, the tank’s 125mm smoothbore gun thunders, blasting a hole in the front of the facility. The resounding boom shakes the forest around me and I can feel the heat of the building going up in flames more than a hundred yards away. This is followed by a series of smaller explosions—most likely detonations placed within the building by the soldiers.
Of course, by then several soldiers are tailing me on the other snowmobiles. I switch my goggles back to night vision and turn off my Taiga’s headlights. I immediately turn off the road and head into the thick forest, zigzagging through the trees. At this speed you’d have to be crazy to try and maneuver past these natural obstacles, but I suppose I am. There’s a fine line between a death wish and being a little crazy.
I notice the headlights of the tailing snowmobiles turn off the road behind me. Damn, they figured out where I went. Well, let’s see if they can keep up with me. I inch up my speed to seventy-five. The trees are whipping past at a dizzying rate. I have to forget about the guys behind me in order to concentrate on steering. The last thing I need is to wind my legs around a tree trunk.
Gunfire. I feel the heat of the bullets slicing the air near my head. I duck lower on the vehicle, which hampers my steering capability. WHAM! The snowmobile grazes a tree and the thing wipes out. I’m aware of being in midair for a second or two and then I land hard on the ground. I thank my lucky stars I wasn’t thrown into a tree or a rock.
The tracking snowmobiles come closer. I manage to pull myself up and limp to the overturned Taiga. I push it upright, get back on, and start her up again. The right front ski is bent but I think it’ll still go. I accelerate and test the steering mechanism. Not bad. If I cheat to the left a bit, I can get the damned thing to go straight.
More gunfire. Great.
I increase the speed and take off into the darkness just as I hear a spectacular crash behind me. One of the enemy snowmobiles has merged with a tree in a most unpleasant manner. That’s good for me but it’s also set the tree aflame. If the fire spreads it could illuminate the forest and they’ll be able to see me better. Gotta lose these guys and fast.
I press the implant in my throat. “Are you there? Anyone?” I ask.
“We read you, Sam,” Lambert says in my ear.
“You tracking me?” I ask.
“We’ve got you by satellite. I’ll bet you need directions.”
“Please.”
“I’m afraid you can’t go back to the main road to Obukhiv. It’s swarming with troops. Your best bet is to head for the Dnipro.”
“The river?”
“Come on, it can’t be that cold. Your suit will protect you.”
“You want me to swim to safety?”
“Dump the snowmobile. Better yet, crash it. Your pursuers will hopefully think you’re dead.”
I shake my head. “Lambert, I’m beginning to feel like an underpaid stuntman. Okay, how far am I from the river?”
I hear Lambert consult with someone off mike, probably Carly or Mike Chan. He comes back and says, “You’re less than a mile away. Take a thirty-degree turn to the left and you’ll be heading straight for it.”
“Thanks. I’m out.” I make the move, dodge another tree, and try to increase my speed. Now the thing’s going about fifty and it’s the best I can do.
Suddenly and without warning, a snowmobile bursts out of the brush in front of me. The headlight nearly blinds me and I have to avert my eyes for a second, steer right, and perform a jump over a fallen log. My Taiga lands awkwardly and spins around. The Russian soldier slows his vehicle and fires a pistol at me. The bullet whizzes over my left shoulder as I duck and skid the Taiga in a half circle to kick up a snow spray. This gives me time to draw the Five-seveN, point it in his direction, and shoot.
Two rounds miss but the third hits the soldier in the chest, knocking him off his vehicle. I holster my gun, turn the Taiga back toward the river, and speed on.
I hear the roar of the water up ahead. I pick a nice thick tree fifty feet away and push the speed as high as it’ll go. At the same time I position myself by crouching on the seat, ready to leap off at the last second. Closer . . . closer . . . and I jump, land in the snow, roll, and wait.
The Taiga slams into the tree and bursts into a fireball. The thing is obliterated.
I stand and make my way toward the roar. In three minutes I find myself at the bank of the Dnipro, a wide, snaking river that runs from western Russia through Belarus, and down into Ukraine all the way to the Black Sea. The spot I happened to pick for entry has no easy grade to climb down. I estimate it’s at least a fifty-foot drop.
So I assume a stance, concentrate, take a deep breath, and jump off the bank. I hit the cold water like a knife, relax, and let my natural buoyancy lift me to the surface. Lambert was right. My suit keeps out the frigid temperature, but the ice water bites at my face. I roll so that I’m on my back—which goes a long way toward keeping my face warm—and drift to a place of safety as the strong current carries my horizontal body downstream.
All in a day’s work, because I’m Sam Fisher. And I’m a Splinter Cell.
2
ANDREI Zdrok was not a morning person. If he had his way, Zdrok would sleep until noon and retire after midnight. Unfortunately, he had never been able to do that during his entire life. Coming from a family of bankers that did business in the former Soviet Union, it was always “early to bed, early to rise,” etc., and he hated it. Even though he had tremendous wealth, acquired from the banks that did most of the USSR government’s financial business, Zdrok found it difficult to find happiness in the world. When the Soviet Union fell and he founded the arms-dealing black market enterprise known as the Shop, he thought everything would become rosy. For a while, it seemed that it had. But things changed a year ago, after the disastrous dealings with the terrorist group known as the Shadows. The United States’ law enforcement forces, namely the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, broke through the Shadows’ ranks and destroyed them. A domino effect reverberated through the pipeline back to the Shop, crippling the organization so badly that Zdrok had to pick up roots and move out of Europe. While living in Switzerland was nice, he never cared much for the places he had resided prior to the exodus—namely Russia and Azerbaijan.
He didn’t much like Hong Kong either.
The Shop had set up headquarters in the Far East because the organization had friends there. A particular Triad had done business with the Shop for many years and helped establish a base of operations for Zdrok. The Shop once enjoyed a profitable territory in the Far East, especially in Macau, Indonesia, and the Philippines, until the National Security Agency—once again—caused some damage to the status quo. But there were still Shop operatives in the Far East, ready and willing to go back to work. The territory could be rebuilt. Hong Kong seemed to be the most desirable choice for a new base, despite the fact that the former British colony was now under Communist Chinese rule. Zdrok’s friends had assured him that business in Hong Kong had continued “as usual,” that is, in a capitalist state of mind, after the 1997 handover. This economic philosophy was supposed to continue as such for fifty years, while Hong Kong remained a “Special Administrative Region,” along with Macau, which also was recently reannexed to China, after decades of Portuguese rule.
Zdrok walked east on Hollywood Road in the Sheung Wan district, one of the more popular areas of Hong Kong Island. The streets, occupied by an
tique and curio shops, Buddhist and Taoist temples, eateries, and oddly, coffin makers, always seemed to smell badly to Zdrok. In fact, the whole of Hong Kong smelled. They didn’t call it “Fragrant Harbour” for nothing. At least up on the Peak, where he rented a modest but comfortable bungalow, the air was fresh. His accommodations were a far cry from what he had been used to, especially most recently in Switzerland, but they would do. What he disliked was coming to work, and that brought him down to Sheung Wan.
He turned north and then east again onto Upper Lascar Row, known locally as “Cat Street.” Zdrok had no idea why it was called that. There weren’t any cats that he could see. Just more antique shops. And one of them was the front for the Shop.
Zdrok unlocked the door to the “Hong Kong-Russian Curios” storefront, a place that had been there for ages but had recently undergone a name change. Jon Ming, venerable leader of the Lucky Dragons Triad, had smoothed the way for Zdrok’s visa and business license and taken care of other administrative hurdles. So far everything had worked smoothly. Now if he could just get used to the smell.
He went through the legitimate shop, which was full of all manner of junk that Zdrok couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to buy (but they did—the store actually showed a small profit) and stepped through the door behind the counter. It was still too early for the regular shop employees to be there. He paused at a mirror and took a look at his reflection.
At fifty-eight years old, Andrei Zdrok was still a handsome man. He enjoyed grooming himself and dressing as if he were the richest man in the world. At one time he was one of the ten wealthiest men in Russia. He had no idea if that was still true. Probably not.
The back of the store was a storeroom full of boxes, supplies, and a trick bookcase that rotated when one pulled out The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, replaced it, and then removed a book entitled Bogus Bard: The Life of Christopher Marlowe. This revealed the inner offices of the Shop, where Andrei Zdrok spent most of his daylight hours.