Nestes lifted his pistol.
Lex saw the gun flash and heard the report in his head before either actually happened.
He was already diving for the mud, shouting, “Don’t waste your time! We’ve got a drone. You can’t run!”
By the time Lex lifted his head to stare back down the hillside, Nestes was gone.
“Borya, where the hell is he?”
“Heading west, paralleling the river, about fifty meters ahead of you now.”
“Roger. All three of you move up!” Lex sprang to his feet, swearing as he came around the wooden trunk of another palm, its long pinnate leaves brushing his face. He misjudged the distance and caromed off, his shoulder warming with pain.
Gritting his teeth, he moved across the rise and worked his way farther down, beginning to see the river through the fettered canopy and the shafts of dust-laden light warming the undergrowth. He was sweating like a dog now, his nondescript Raider fatigues soaked, eyes stinging.
As the jungle grew more dense, he reached out with all of his senses—blue eyes squinting, fingers running across a torn frond as he passed. He noted the muddy tracks winding around a cluster of shrubs. He jerked his head at a sound.
Movement out there, beyond a stand of trees: a flash of Nestes’s white shirt.
Lex quickened his pace, homing in on the man as though his brain were now a radar system, prints marked, swinging branches observed, his gaze leaping ahead to predict his target’s course. The stench of rotting fronds and mud made him grimace, but he kept on, breathing in a smooth, rhythmic pattern like they’d taught him all those years ago in Quantico, during Officer Candidate School (OCS). He was thirty-three now, but back then, during the good old days when he’d been in his twenties, nobody gave a shit when an American-born guy with a Russian last name wanted to be a Marine. It was a non-issue. But once President Kapalkin and his cronies in Moscow began showing their true colors by manipulating terrorist groups to do their bidding—and after the Russians invaded Poland and parts of Europe—suddenly Lex’s colleagues regarded him differently. They loved the idea that he spoke fluent Russian and could work flawlessly behind enemy lines; they hated the idea that maybe, just maybe, blood was thicker than water, and one day he’d turn on the country that had taken in his poor grandparents from Odessa and given them a whole new life in New York. What the hell did they know?
America was Lex’s country, but his parents and grandparents deemed it very important that he never lose touch with his roots. Everyone learned English, but no one ever forgot their Russian. His relatives were spread out across the northeast, from Virginia to Pennsylvania to Connecticut and New York, and they too loved their homes, their nation.
But for all of them, that Russian surname was hard to escape when the shit had gone down.
No, the U.S. government had not set up internment camps for Russian Americans like him, but like American-born Muslims after 9/11, they were not treated with the same dignity and respect. Moreover, many of Lex’s fellow soldiers never looked at him the same way again. Sure, some would come to his aid and point out how ridiculous their paranoia was, but that didn’t help.
Tired of dealing with it, he’d jumped at the chance to join the JSF’s new Special Raid Teams Group (SRT) and prove his mettle and loyalty by exploiting his Russian heritage.
Composed of a select few Marines from the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion out of Camp Pendleton and men from the 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion out of Camp Lejeune, the new SRTs were patterned after the original Marine Raiders established by the United States during World War II but disbanded after they had outlived their mission. The old Raiders had been formed to conduct amphibious light infantry warfare behind enemy lines and were some of the United States’ first special operations forces to see combat during the war. The new JSF Marine Raiders were charged with the same mission, deploying small teams of operators who could best impersonate the enemy in both Europe and Asia.
For his part, Lex had handpicked his own Raider team, all three Russian Americans like himself, specialists who could walk the streets of St. Petersburg with impunity, manhunters one and all. You either put your faith and trust in them or you didn’t. Their record spoke for itself: sixteen high-value targets (HVTs) captured or killed in the last twelve months, even as they were still pursuing Nestes. The Secretary of the Navy himself had congratulated them. It was satisfying to stick it to the doubters and haters.
Lex was even closer to the river now, the mist tickling his nose, the white water partially hidden by curtains of branches and leaves. Once he reached the next tree he stopped, driving himself in tight against the wood, tagua nuts scattered at his feet. He squinted through the trees, waiting.
A slight rustle of leaves sounded overhead, and the water continued beating on the rocky shoreline. A bird squawked. Sweat dripped onto his rifle.
He realized he was panting and tried to muffle his breath. He grew calmer and spoke softly in Russian. “Talk to me, Borya.”
The man answered in Russian: “He stopped. Thirty meters southwest of you. He’s following the river, keeping about ten meters away.”
“Can you cut him off?”
“Yeah, we can. On our way.”
Lex lifted his carbine and stared down the ACOG. He willed himself to grow calm. The gunsight’s reticle floated over the hillside, toward an outcropping of moss-covered rocks, then shifted farther down to a tree with some kind of white fungus spread across its trunk like a pair of talons. Lex blinked. Wait a second. That was Nestes, holding tight against the palm. Got you . . .
Drawing in a deep breath, Lex shifted aim to the man’s arm. Injure, don’t kill, he reminded himself, but it was hard to hold back when he had the faces of those train victims in Paris in his head, the faces of those children who’d been in Atlanta, and the brutal massacre of all those college kids in Tokyo. Carlos Nestes’s face had circulated around the world, his videos gone viral. He’d grown his hair out and been hiding here in the jungle, shadowing an American missionary group, when one of them had spotted him, recognized his face, and given Lex and his men the break they needed.
Now it was time for this bastard to pay. Screw the intel. Screw the deals he’d make. Lex’s aim shifted back to Nestes’s heart.
He trembled and reminded himself that he was a professional, that he always acted accordingly and in the best interests of the Marine Corps and the United States. No matter what this prick had done, he could not take away Lex’s identity, his esprit de corps. Lex should not give in to temptation. He could not.
Letting out a deep breath, he aimed for the man’s arm and calculated the distance and bullet drop, rough estimates to be sure. The intel in Nestes’s head was too valuable, despite all of the bloodshed. Lex rewound that thought and ordered himself to believe it.
Nestes slowly lifted his head in Lex’s direction, squinting. He widened his eyes in recognition.
Lex fired—
But the shot fell wide, tearing a jagged hole in the palm tree as Nestes darted away.
Swearing aloud in Russian, Lex groaned and propelled himself forward, barely minding his step across an obstacle course of moss-and-dew covered roots, his boots sliding, his balance nearly gone before he catapulted off the last one and knifed his way farther ahead, reaching the tree he’d shot, cutting around it, then spotting Nestes as he ducked under several gnarled and low-hanging branches whose surfaces were alive with ants.
“Lex, he’s coming toward us,” said Borya.
“Roger, let him know he’s surrounded.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, I think he spotted us and he’s turning around, coming right at you now!”
Lex hunkered down, tucking himself up against the nearest palm tree, feeling like a jaguar reading his prey. The shrubs just ahead were spanned by thick spiderwebs, the furry beast crawling down toward Lex’s leg. Using the muzzle of his carbine, he flicked the sp
ider away—just as Nestes neared him, making a sharp turn toward the river.
“Hold it right there,” Lex said, springing up from the tree and training his rifle on Nestes, who came to an abrupt halt about five meters away. He did not turn around, nor did he raise his hands.
Borya had the drone over them now, the rotors humming above the canopy, Nestes’s position clearly marked.
“Turn and walk toward me,” Lex ordered.
Nestes craned his neck enough to steal a glimpse of Lex, and the second they made eye contact, the son of a bitch took off again, his hair trailing like flames.
“Borya, he’s heading straight for the river now. Take the flanks and we’ll pin him down there.”
Head low, measuring his steps more carefully now, Lex fell in behind the man, the ground turning rocky, the footing precarious, and then, as he pushed through some thick ferns that obscured his entire view, his boots were in the air, no footing at all, and he landed on his rump, the ground dropping away at a forty-five-degree angle and plunging at least fifty meters toward the more level ground at the riverbank.
Even as Lex rode the currents of mud, struggling to sit up, with more mud blasting into his face, he realized that Nestes, too, had made the same error, and was right there, just ahead, arms flailing as he struggled to control his descent.
Lex blinked, the mud blinding him momentarily, and then his boots struck something hard, a large rock that sent him whipping face-forward now down the hillside, the M4 torn out of his grip.
That his combination earpiece/microphone was still attached was a small miracle, he thought, as Borya cried, “Holy shit, boss, are you all right?”
And then nothing, the earpiece flicked away as Lex’s elbow caught once more on a rock and he now logrolled toward the shoreline, covered head to toe in mud.
Each time his body lifted into the air, he groaned, anticipating the next impact on a rock. A kaleidoscope of green-streaked brown filled his eyes, and as the water began to rage in his ears, he finally came to a halt, lying flat on his back, the world still rotating around him.
He stole a quick breath, then wrenched himself up to a seated position. He began spitting out mud and backhanding it from his eyes, and when he turned his head, trying to see anything through all the wetness and dirt, he found a pistol in his face.
“Hello there, comrade,” said Nestes in perfect Russian. That wasn’t his real name, Lex knew, and he wasn’t South American. He’d been born in Kaliningrad. He and his brother, a man who’d gone by the alias of José Nestes and who’d been killed in England, had a Russian father and Peruvian mother.
“I guess you have a conscience,” Lex said. “Because I would have pulled the trigger.”
“No, I just need you as a hostage to get me out of here.”
Lex snorted. “Won’t happen.”
“Oh, yeah, it will.”
“You really—seriously—think you can take me?”
Nestes thought about that, tossing his wet and matted hair out of his eyes. He resembled a savage now, like a character out of literature, gleaming teeth and glistening mud. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. We’re the Forgotten Army, truly forgotten. The Ganjin has changed. We were once partners. Now we’re only tools.”
“What’re you talking about?”
Before the man could answer, the drone came swooping in—
And just as Nestes glanced up, the UAV slammed into his forehead, knocking him off balance.
In that same second, Lex lunged for the man, seizing his wrist with both hands, and then, once in control, he reached up and got his hand around Nestes’s pistol, prying it from the man’s grip.
As soon as the gun came free, Nestes, in a last-ditch effort, spun around, unscrewing his arm from Lex’s grip. As the arm came free, he stumbled back, facing the bubbling, rushing white water behind him, then threw himself in.
As the current swept Nestes away, Lex shuddered with indecision. “Aw, hell . . .”
He dove into the waves.
FOUR
SinoRus Group Oil Exploration Headquarters
Sakhalin Island
North of Japan
She had once been Viktoria Kolosov, born thirty-eight years ago, the daughter of a schoolteacher and a car transporter from Vladivostok, Russia.
And then she was Viktoria Antsyforov, the wife of Nikolai Antsyforov, a doctor who’d died for a corrupt government. She was also the sister of two brothers, one poisoned by radiation like her husband, the other sacrificing himself and his submarine for men who were incapable of gratitude.
But now she was Snegurochka. The Snow Maiden. The world’s most wanted woman, described by the media as a true sociopath, murdering with cold, cruel efficiency.
The security officer pointing the Uzi in her face assumed he’d just captured her. Was he that stupid?
She knocked his submachine gun away, then drove a knuckle into his eye, a knee into his groin. She wrenched free his weapon and forced him over the catwalk’s railing to plunge ten meters to the concrete below.
As his echoing scream rushed up at them, she turned the gun on her other three assailants, spraying them with a hailstorm of rounds as they came charging toward her.
Too bad Fedorovich had given them orders to take her alive, and too bad they were not equipped with Tasers or other less-than-lethal measures to subdue her. They might have had more fight in them. She hadn’t wanted a bloodbath, but if she had to walk across a carpet of bodies to get the hell out of here, then so be it.
Back up ten minutes ago to the conference room on the other side of this petrochemical processing and recovery plant:
She had just learned that her employers, members of a group called the Ganjin, now controlled a member of the Joint Strike Force’s high command, and they were about to control General Sergei Izotov, director of the Glavnoje Razvedyvatel’noje Upravlenije (GRU)—the Russian Federation’s foreign military intelligence service.
Her handler, Dr. Merpati “Patti” Sukarnoputri, had explained the history of the group thusly:
“Ganjin as a concept was born many years ago, back in the 1970s, during the fall of the Communist regime. The movement was the precursor in China toward capitalistic individualism and enabled the beehive mentality of Chinese society to restructure into many hives. The concept prompted Xu Liangyu and Isaac Eisenstein, two classmates at Harvard, to consider how the Ganjin could be used to gain control of the world’s natural and socioeconomic resources.”
The Ganjin, the Snow Maiden later learned, had plans to undermine the superpowers during this time of war and wreak economic havoc on a global scale so that when the time came, they could take advantage of the weakened economies and, as the Snow Maiden understood it, seize control of their governments.
Of course, they had tried to keep that agenda from her. She’d been hired as an assassin and manhunter, promised protection from the Russians, who sought her more than any other government because she, too, had once worked for GRU, knew their secrets, could identify many of their agents, and had told her old bosses in the Russian government in no uncertain terms that she intended to see Moscow burn . . .
But ten minutes ago, in that conference room, she’d learned that her “relationship” with the Ganjin was going to become something “so much more.” Patti and her boss, Igany Fedorovich, director of SinoRus, had said that China no longer wanted any part of the group, and the “Committee of Five” had split apart. Patti and Fedorovich had a new agenda, one they claimed was meant to foster peace, but in order to get there they needed the Snow Maiden’s utmost loyalty.
A five-micromillimeter chip (one-tenth the diameter of a human hair) would be placed into the optical nerve of the Snow Maiden’s eye. The chip would capture neuroimpulses from the brain that embody the experiences, smells, sights, and voice of the implanted person. Once transferred and stored i
n a computer, those signals would be projected back to her brain via the microchip to be “relived.” Using a Remote Monitoring System (RMS), a land-based computer operator would send electromagnetic messages (encoded as signals) to the nervous system, affecting the Snow Maiden’s performance. She could be induced to see hallucinations and even hear voices in her head.
Every thought, reaction, hearing, and visual observation would cause a certain neurological potential. Patterns in the brain and its electromagnetic fields would be decoded into thoughts, pictures, and voices.
But most importantly, commands.
Electromagnetic stimulation would change the Snow Maiden’s brain waves and affect muscular activity, causing painful muscular cramps experienced as torture if she did not obey.
Obedience brought extreme pleasure, sometimes even orgasm.
Major Alice Dennison of the Joint Strike Force already had a microchip in her eye. Izotov from the GRU was about to have one implanted against his will.
“I don’t believe it,” the Snow Maiden had cried.
“Silicon and germanium microchips have been around for years,” Dennison had said smugly. “They gave way to biochips using strands of DNA in place of wires to latch on to and recognize thousands of genes at a time. Our microchips are the result of that research and the studies done on patients with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. This is the future, Viktoria, and you’ll be a part of it.”
“Screw the future, Science Lady. You’re not sticking anything in my head.”
Flash forward ten minutes, and here she was. They were not happy about her rather rude exit.
They’d confiscated her smartphone before the meeting, but that hardly mattered. There was no one to call, anyway. Patti and her associates had been the Snow Maiden’s only true allies in the world. The others from her tenure with the GRU either had been killed or could no longer be trusted because there was a steep bounty on her head, and she’d learned long ago that you could always put a price on friendship.