“We will never be able to take off!” Kagan protested.
“I don’t want to take off—I want to get past him so I can fucking shoot back!”
In the cockpit, the Russian urgently relayed the order to the copilot. The man hesitated, but more explosive rounds shredding the side of the fuselage immediately erased his doubts. He pushed all the throttles to maximum power.
The wounded Bear surged forward. The trail of smoke from the damaged engine was joined by flames—then an explosion ripped open the nacelle.
Nina risked raising her head and saw the squat ZSU carving toward the runway ahead of them. More fire flashed from its cannons, tracers streaking at her like meteors. She ducked again as the Tupolev took more hits, impacts tearing along the hull. Another set of warning lights flashed on the instrument panel. “Eddie! This thing’s going to rip us apart!”
“Just tell them to keep going—it only has light armor, so if I can hit it, it’s dead!”
“If you can hit it! And we’re a much bigger target!” She looked up again. The ZSU was about four hundred yards away, but rapidly growing as the bomber bore down upon it.
“Just tell me how far away it is—and where to aim!”
“It’s on the left, about—I dunno, a hundred feet from the runway and getting closer. We’re about three hundred yards away—whoa!” She dropped behind the pilot’s seat as cannon shells punctured the radome below the cockpit. A shrill wind blasted into the cabin.
The copilot shouted at her, but she waved for him to keep going. “Two hundred yards, we’re almost—”
The ZSU unleashed another ferocious burst of fire. An entire section of the Tupolev’s port wing blew apart as shells ripped through a fuel tank. A hot gale rushed in through the holes in the hull.
The Russian weapons officer opposite Kagan shouted in panic. Nina looked back to see red lights flashing urgently on his control panel. “The wing is on fire—and so are the missiles!” Kagan yelled.
“Then tell him to drop them!” She stumbled back down the gangway.
“It’s against protocol!”
“Screw protocol!” She reached the weapons station. The Cyrillic was impenetrable, but the symbol beside a rank of switches under the blinking lights was self-explanatory. A stylized missile with a downward-pointing arrow behind it, surrounded by an irregular multipointed star: explosive release.
She glanced forward, seeing the ZSU whip out of sight as the Bear rushed past it. “Eddie, I’m sending you some bombs!”
Before the weapons officer could stop her, she stabbed at the switches.
A series of rapid cracks came from the burning wing pylon—then the three cruise missiles mounted upon it dropped away and tumbled along the runway like skittles.
Eddie’s view of the runway’s edge had been blotted out by a huge cloud of swirling black smoke. If he didn’t destroy the ZSU, it would tear the crippled Bear apart, but he couldn’t see his target—
Flashes of pale gray on the ground—and he realized he didn’t need to.
Each Kh-101 was fully laden with fuel and carried a warhead weighing a full metric ton. The 23mm rounds were more than enough to detonate them.
He fired—
The missiles exploded, their combined blast ripping a huge crater out of the runway. Eddie was thrown back in his seat as the detonation pummeled the Bear’s tail. But the bomber was already haring away from the explosion.
The ZSU was not.
Slavin was in the commander’s cupola, looking out from the top of the turret. His triumph at seeing the Tupolev’s wing erupt into flames changed to terror—then the shock wave pounded his head into a bloody pulp against the unyielding open hatch cover behind him. The ZSU was flipped end-over-end, the burning wreck slamming down on its back in the snow.
“I got him, I got him!” Eddie shouted into the headset. “Slow us down!”
Nina desperately searched for somewhere to secure herself. “We can’t!” she cried. The copilot had already yanked back the throttles and stamped on the pedal to apply the wheelbrakes, but with half a wing missing the Bear was unbalanced and veering toward the side of the runway. One of the overstressed nosewheel tires exploded, the metal rim screeching along the concrete in a shower of sparks. “Hang on!”
She grabbed the back of the bombardier’s seat as the plane careened onto the frozen grass—
The forward landing gear was ripped away on the rough ground, followed a moment later by the aft legs. The Tupolev slammed down on its belly.
Eight mighty propellers carved deep channels into the soil before the stress ripped the blades out at their roots. The burning port wing was wrenched from the fuselage, cartwheeling away from the plane before the fuel still inside it exploded in a colossal fireball. The rest of the Tu-95 continued onward, skidding across the snowy plain in a trail of churned earth and mangled aluminum before finally grinding to a standstill.
Nina groggily raised her head. Tova, sprawled in the pilot’s foot well, moaned softly. Kagan had managed to partially fasten his seat belt just before the crash, while the aircraft’s remaining crew were in varying states of confusion and relief at having survived the destruction of their plane.
The sight of gleaming steel among the scattered debris on the cabin’s corrugated floor snapped Nina back to full, horrified awareness. “Oh shit!” she gasped, scrabbling to it. The container holding Thor’s Hammer had been jolted from its resting place, and was now lying on its side.
Kagan saw it too. “Is it broken?” he said, fumbling to unfasten his restraints.
What Nina could see of the container appeared undamaged bar a few scratches. She hesitantly nudged it over to examine the other side, paying close attention to the seal around the lid. “Thank God,” she whispered. It had remained intact.
A crackle came from her headphones. “Nina, are you okay? Nina! Can you hear me?”
“I’m here, I’m here,” she assured Eddie. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll live,” he replied. “Got a problem, though.”
“What is it?” she asked, worried again. If the bomber was on fire, or Kagan’s superiors had not yet gotten their message through to the base commander to stand down …
“The plane’s landed on its belly, so I can’t get out! Don’t suppose you’ve got a hammer up there to smash open the window?”
Her relieved laughter echoed incongruously through the wreckage.
22
Vietnam
Finding wood dry enough to burn in the depths of the jungle had been difficult, but Chase had managed it. The pyre he constructed in the center of a small clearing was not large, but still enough to support the young woman’s body.
He used the gunpowder from some of his remaining bullets to help start the fire. The flames spread quickly, wood popping and snapping. Dark smoke swirled up through the trees as the blaze grew, swallowing the motionless figure atop it.
Chase watched the grim sight, his face set and expressionless. When he was sure that the corpse was completely consumed by flames, he picked up Hoyt’s backpack. One by one, the pieces of stolen Russian research it contained were thrown onto the bonfire. Papers curled into ash, disks melted. The laptop was the last item to be destroyed, acrid gray smoke belching from the vents in its casing as plastic sizzled and melted. There was a muffled bang and a sputtering gush of sparks as its batteries ignited. He withdrew from the stench—both of technology, and of charred flesh.
More time passed, the sky reddening as the sun dropped, but the Englishman did not leave. Instead, he added more wood to the pile, keeping the fire strong. Natalia had told him that nothing could be left for the Americans or Russians, and he knew she was right. This was the only way to end things.
But by doing so, he was giving away his position, sending a beacon into the sky that would lead his enemies right to him.
He pushed a last chunk of broken branch into the flames, then sat on a moldering log, wondering what had happened to Castille. The smoke might als
o lead his friend to him—if he was still alive—but who else would he find waiting?
His macabre vigil resumed. He couldn’t leave until he was sure that the body was totally incinerated. If any part remained intact, there was still the danger that the Russians or Lock’s people might analyze it and discover the secrets it contained …
A bird chattered in alarm. Chase looked around, raising the gun. He saw nothing, but had a gut feeling that the disturbance had been caused by something more than an animal. “All right!” he shouted, crouching behind the log. “I know someone’s out there. Come on, show yourself!”
A pause, then: “Chase!” Lock’s voice. He couldn’t see the American, but estimated that he was about forty yards distant behind some bushes. That meant Hoyt and his men were also nearby … “If you hand over Natalia, I’m willing to let you live.”
“Come and get her,” Chase shouted back, checking the other approaches to his position. If Hoyt hadn’t already sent his team to surround him, he would be in the middle of doing so. He was not surprised to spot movement in the undergrowth. “Oi, you behind the bush! Yeah, I see you.”
“And I see you,” said another voice, closer. Hoyt. Chase spun to see the skull-faced mercenary rounding a tree twenty yards away, an AK pointed at him. “Don’t move. Drop the gun.”
Chase did so, then put his hands up. Hoyt cautiously advanced. “Move in,” he called to the others. Four men in dark clothing rose from the undergrowth and closed on the Yorkshireman. Hoyt’s gaze flicked suspiciously from side to side. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “This was another goddamn decoy, wasn’t it? Where’s the girl?”
“She’s here,” said Chase, letting an angry bitterness into his voice.
“Where?”
“Are you fucking blind? Right in front of you.”
Hoyt looked at the fire, still wary—then his eyes widened in shock. “What the—Motherfuck!” he gasped. “Boss, get over here!” He turned back to Chase, his expression for once completely devoid of its usual arrogance. “What the fuck did you do?”
“What she asked me to,” Chase replied.
Hoyt stared at him, still stunned, then yelled to the nearest of his men. “Bonnell, watch him! If he moves, shoot him.” The mercenary guarded Chase as his leader ran to the pyre.
Lock made his way through the trees. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Where’s Natalia?”
Hoyt put one hand to his head in dismay. “She’s … she’s here, on the fucking fire! She’s fucking dead!”
Lock froze. “What?”
“He’s burned her! And—son of a bitch!” He snatched up his empty backpack, fruitlessly shaking it out. “He’s burned all the research I took from the Ruskies too. Jesus!”
The goateed man’s jaw dropped open as he looked at the shape in the flames. “Holy Christ. What did you do, Chase? What the hell did you do?”
Keeping his hands raised, Chase slowly straightened. “Natalia knew she was going to die young anyway, thanks to that shit her grandfather infected her with. And she told me she’d rather go out how she chose than like her mum and her grandma. She wanted to save lives. And by stopping you from getting hold of what’s inside her, she has.”
“So you killed her? You actually put a bullet in her?”
He looked down at the ground. “Yeah. I shot her.”
Hoyt shook his head, something almost approaching a smile of admiration on his lips. “I underestimated you, Chase. Never thought you’d be stone-cold enough to do something like that.”
“It’s not like I enjoyed it,” Chase said angrily. “Unlike you. Fucking psycho.”
Lock shook his head. “No, no way. I don’t believe this. It’s got to be a trick. Put that fire out and check the body. And see if you can recover any of the research.”
The other mercenaries used the butts of their rifles to knock apart the base of the pyre branch by branch, then kicked and scattered the burning wood. Hoyt probed the laptop’s remains with a stick. “This thing’s toast. So is all the rest of it.”
“What about Natalia?”
One of the men gagged as the flames faded and he got his first clear view of the burnt body. Lock’s face twisted in disgust, but he leaned closer to look at the blackened skull. “Okay, definitely human … and one hell of an exit wound.” A chunk of the dead woman’s face was missing, a ragged hole in the bone running from above her right eye down into her left cheek. “Dammit, everything’s been burned … Wait.” His gaze flicked to a dark stain on the ground beside the fire. “Got some hair in the blood spatter here.”
He picked up a twig and very carefully used it to snag the dirty strands, then tipped his prize into a cupped hand. “Has anyone got water?”
One of the mercs produced a canteen. Lock poured a few drops onto his hand, then delicately ran the hair through it before using his fingertips to wipe away the caked blood. “It’s blond.” He brushed the hairs from his palm and turned to Chase. “Jesus, you actually did it. You burned everything.”
“To stop you,” said the Englishman, stone-faced.
“We’re on the same side, Chase! America and Britain, the special relationship! Remember that?” Lock stalked toward him, the mercenaries following. “We bake the cake, and you get our crumbs. That’s the way it works. We had a chance to set back the Russians by years and give our own work a huge boost”—he stabbed a finger at the empty backpack—“but thanks to you, we’ve got nothing!”
“Good! Natalia told me all about what her grandfather did—and nobody should have that fucking stuff. Not you, not the Russians, not anybody.”
“That’s not for you to decide.”
“No. It was for her to decide.” He looked past Lock to the remains of the pyre. “She decided what she wanted to do. And I helped her. God fuckin’ help me for doing it.”
“Funny you should mention God,” said Hoyt. “You’ll be seeing him soon enough. If Natalia’s dead and 201’s research is gone, then we’re done here. The only thing left for us to do is clean up after ourselves.” He glanced at Lock, who nodded. “This is all your own fault, Chase. If you’d just done what you were being paid to do rather than play the bleeding-heart hero, you’d be on a plane out of here by now. Instead, well … we’ve already got a funeral pyre. No sense wasting it.”
He brought up his gun. Chase tensed. “Do I get any last words?”
“Only if they’re quick,” said Lock. “And if I don’t like them, you’ll never get to finish your sentence.”
Hoyt sneered. “Well, what you got to say?”
Chase took a deep breath, trying to control his fear. “Just that … at least I kept my promise.”
The tall American snorted sarcastically. “I’ve heard better.” His finger curled around the AK’s trigger—
“Nobody move! Drop your guns!”
Hoyt spun at the unexpected voice, his team doing the same—to find weapons aimed at them.
Men emerged from the undergrowth. Most were Vietnamese, but the man who had shouted was not.
Chase recognized him immediately. It was the commander of the encampment, the lean, pale-eyed Russian. With him was the sweaty younger man with the weak mustache who had found Chase and Hoyt in the cabin. “I said, drop them!” the leader called again, firing a shot over the group’s heads for emphasis.
Hoyt looked to Lock for instructions, his expression suggesting that he was willing to risk shooting his way out of the situation, but his boss urgently shook his head. The mercenary reluctantly lowered his gun. “Put ’em down,” he told his men. Rifles thudded to the wet ground.
The new arrivals advanced, collecting the fallen weapons. The Russian stood before the suited man. “Mr. Lock. I did not expect ever to meet the deputy director of the BSA in person.”
“It wasn’t part of the plan,” Lock growled.
The Russian half smirked, then cast an unfriendly eye over Hoyt and his men before turning to Chase. “I do not know if I should thank you, or shoot you.”
 
; “I’ll take the first one,” said Chase, not sure what was going on but looking for any opportunity to take advantage of it. “Who’re you?”
“My name is Grigory Alekseyevich Kagan. I am the field commander of a Russian special operations unit. I am sure you have an idea of its purpose by now.”
“Yeah, I got the gist,” Chase said with disapproval. “Why would you want to thank me?”
“Because you did not deliver Natalia to these men. By keeping her from them, you have done a great favor not only for Russia, but for the whole world. And once we have her back, we can make sure they never get what they were trying to obtain.” He looked back at Lock. “I would guess that you will be out of a job soon, no?”
To everyone’s surprise, Lock began to laugh. “Oh, you stupid son of a bitch,” the American said between chuckles. “You haven’t realized what he’s done, have you?”
“What do you mean?”
Lock gestured toward the fire. “See for yourself.”
Puzzled, Kagan moved closer—then whirled to face Chase in horrified disbelief. “What have you done? What have you done?”
“What she asked me to do,” Chase replied.
“She asked you to kill her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” It was almost a shout.
“To stop all you arseholes from restarting her granddad’s work. She made me promise that I wouldn’t let that happen. And now it won’t.”
“But we were not trying to restart it! We were trying to end it!”
The sudden gloating look on Lock’s face told Chase that things were not as he had thought. “Wait, how do you mean?” he asked the Russian.
Kagan spoke slowly, trying to control his emotions. “How much do you know about the work of Serafim Volkov—Natalia’s grandfather?”
“She told me that he wrote a letter telling his wife what he’d been doing—about that eitr stuff, and his experiments. And that your lot used the biggest fucking nuke ever made to seal up the pit where you found the eitr.”