The Shadow Protocol

  The terrorists climbed into the aircraft to secure the RTG. The Russian soldiers and Zykov’s bodyguards, meanwhile, decided that their part in the heavy lifting was done. They returned to the shore. “All right!” said Sevnik. “Let’s go!” Hefting the cases, he set off back through the cutting. The soldiers followed, one taking out a walkie-talkie and issuing a curt instruction. A few seconds later Adam heard a muffled whine through the trees. The Hind had started its engines.

  That was good: With the Russian troops and their gunship gone, Tony’s team would no longer be so drastically outnumbered. But if they didn’t arrive soon, their numerical advantage would be worthless. Al-Rais and his men would have left with their prize, leaving only Zykov, his bodyguards, and the Vityaz’s driver.

  He looked up the cutting at the stalled Vityaz as Sevnik’s group, moving at a rapid trot, passed it. The driver finally freed the cable from the hydraulics. He watched the soldiers go, then turned to toss the metal line into the snow—

  Something made him freeze.

  Adam knew immediately what the driver had seen. My footprints.

  None of the Vityaz’s passengers had crossed the cutting. The driver peered into the woods, puzzled, then plodded to investigate the mysterious tracks.

  It wouldn’t take him long to work out that someone else had been there. Adam checked the plane. The RTG was being lashed into place. “How far away is Tony?”

  “A few minutes.”

  “Do they know the situation here?”

  “Yes. They’re moving as fast as they can.”

  “Adam,” cut in Kyle urgently. One of al-Rais’s men, Qasid, was coming back along the jetty, but that was not what he was warning about. “The driver—he’s following your tracks into the woods.”

  Adam looked back along the cutting. “I don’t see him. Is he behind the buildings?”

  “No—he’s following them back the way you came. He’s heading straight for Bianca!”

  A mixture of cold and fear had driven Bianca deeper into the trees. The longer she spent crouching among the firs, hands and feet slowly numbing, the more exposed she felt. With no idea what was happening outside the little woods, her imagination came up with its own frightening possibilities. Were soldiers patrolling the area? Were al-Rais’s terrorists combing the forest for intruders?

  A loud bang followed by a commotion from the stalled Vityaz had been the final straw. Something had happened—but what? Was Adam in trouble? Even knowing that it directly contradicted Adam’s instructions, she followed his trail. Just being able to see what was going on, she felt, would calm her nerves. At the very least, she would know if she had a genuine reason to be scared.

  It had not taken her long to lug the PERSONA gear to a position with a partial view of the jetty and the ruined mine buildings. The Vityaz was stationary and silent off to her right. Most of the men were clumped together, slowly shuffling through the snow toward the lakeside. She realized they were carrying something.

  The RTG. Al-Rais had got what he came for. And now he was about to take it away.

  She assumed Adam had somehow sabotaged the Vityaz. But there was no sign of him—and since the men were carrying the generator rather than scouring the woods, he had obviously remained undiscovered. That realization eased her tension, slightly. If nobody was looking for Adam, they weren’t looking for her either. She hunched behind a tree, keeping watch.

  The men carrying the RTG reached the jetty, then the plane. Some talking—she recognized Zykov’s voice—and then the soldiers headed back the way they had come. The helicopter started up. Sevnik and his men were leaving.

  What about the terrorists? And where was Adam? All she could do was wait, the cold gnawing at her again. The noise of the helicopter grew louder. She turned her head toward the sound, but couldn’t see the aircraft through the snow-heavy trees.

  She looked back—

  The stab of cold through her heart had nothing to do with the temperature. It was pure fear.

  Someone was moving through the woods.

  It wasn’t Adam. Too broad, coat the wrong color. The Vityaz’s driver? He was looking down at the ground.

  Following Adam’s tracks.

  The tracks that would lead right back to her.

  Bianca choked the breath in her throat, afraid she would be heard. She had to run! But if she did, the driver would see the sudden movement. All she could was crouch behind the tree trunk and make herself as small as possible, terror rising within her as he drew closer …

  “How far is he from her?” Adam demanded. He glimpsed the driver through the trees, but still didn’t know where Bianca was in relation to him.

  “About a hundred feet, maybe?” Kyle replied, unsure.

  Adam stared into the gloom beneath the branches, but saw no trace of her. At least that was something; she was hiding. Maybe the driver would give up and return to the Vityaz …

  “Is it secure, Qasid?” al-Rais asked his comrade as he reached the shore.

  “Almost,” came the reply. “You are finished here?”

  “Yes.” Al-Rais glanced around as the gunship took flight, the pounding thrum of its rotors fading as it wheeled about and headed west over the hills. But a new noise rose to replace it—the Beriev’s engines starting up.

  “If you need any more weapons,” Zykov said to al-Rais, “you know how to reach me. But for now, we go our separate ways, eh?” He looked up the cutting to see how work on the Vityaz was progressing. “Hey, Ogurtsov! Where are you?”

  “Over here,” came a reply from the trees.

  “What are you doing there? Is the Vityaz fixed?”

  Al-Rais had no interest in Zykov’s transportation issues. He spoke briefly to Qasid, then the pair started down the jetty. Adam tensed, bringing up his gun. Time was rapidly running out.

  “There’s something weird,” the driver called. “I found some footprints.”

  On the dock, al-Rais stopped abruptly. “What footprints?”

  Adam took aim—

  Bianca had no idea what the driver was saying, but he was getting closer. She hunched up more tightly, shivering. Maybe he wouldn’t see her, maybe Zykov would call him back, maybe …

  She heard a muffled metallic clack.

  A gun!

  Ogurtsov drew a revolver and cocked it as he advanced on Bianca’s hiding place. “There’s someone here!”

  Al-Rais whirled, yelling to the men in the plane. “It’s an ambush! Get your guns, get out of the—”

  Adam fired.

  Not at the terrorist leader, but at the driver. The Russian crumpled to the ground less than ten feet from Bianca, blood spraying over his coat from a head wound.

  Adam brought his gun back toward al-Rais, but his target was already moving, drawing a weapon of his own as he and his companion raced back to the shore. They dived behind a snow-covered pile of rusted machinery. The American’s second shot clanked off the corroded metal a fraction of a second later.

  “Find them, kill them!” al-Rais screamed. His men started to scramble from the Beriev, AKs at the ready.

  Zykov and his bodyguards had also hurried into cover behind a mound of rubble. “They’re in the buildings!” he shouted.

  Al-Rais glared at him. “You set us up!” he snarled, raising his gun. Qasid rolled onto his front and aimed his Kalashnikov at the Russians.

  Zykov’s eyes widened. “No, I swear—”

  Al-Rais fired, four bloody holes bursting open in the arms dealer’s head and chest. Qasid opened up with his AK on full auto, spraying the bodyguards with lead. Their bullet-riddled corpses flopped to the ground beside Zykov.

  The last of the terrorists jumped from the plane, following his comrades down the jetty—

  Shots tore into them, sending three men spinning into the icy water amid spouting trails of gore. A fourth was hit in the arm. He staggered, screaming—only to take another shot to the throat and collapse dead on the dock. The last two men managed to hurl themselves behind the ice
-encrusted scrap on the shore.

  Adam had been as surprised as the terrorists by the onslaught—but he knew where it had come from.

  Tony, Baxter, and his men had joined the battle.

  He could tell from the sound of the gunfire that they were still some distance away, using their rifles’ scopes to engage from extreme range. “Holly Jo! Where are they?”

  “They’re coming along the shore to the south,” she replied. “About five hundred meters from you.”

  It took him only a moment to visualize the relative positions of all the combatants—and to realize that if the terrorists moved a short distance farther from the lake, the American team’s sight lines would be blocked by the buildings.

  Al-Rais had come to the same conclusion. “Cover me!” he shouted. Adam briefly saw him gesturing toward a single-story building on the cutting’s north side, but wasn’t able to line up a clear shot. “Get into there!”

  The whine of the Beriev’s engines rose sharply. The young copilot reached from the open hatch to unfasten the mooring rope as the seaplane shifted, ice churning and bobbing around its belly—

  A hole suddenly exploded in the windshield, the pilot’s head snapping back out of Adam’s sight as a gunshot echoed along the shore. Not the dry mechanical rattle of the G36s, but the enormous boom of Rossovich’s XM500 sniper rifle. Five hundred meters was nothing for the Persona member’s Barrett; the weapon was designed to hit targets well over a mile away. The copilot shrieked and ducked back inside. The Beriev jerked to a stop, held by the line.

  Al-Rais made a break for the building. Adam took aim—but forced himself not to fire. The mission objective was to capture al-Rais, not kill him. Instead he found a new target as the other three terrorists sprinted after their leader. This time, he didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. One of the running men fell from a bullet wound to his upper back.

  He tracked the next man—but al-Rais had already kicked open the broken door, his remaining followers piling in after him. Unlike the other ruined structures, this had stone walls rather than wood, giving the terrorists much more cover.

  But they hadn’t gone there purely for protection. For Zykov to have contacted him, al-Rais must have had a satellite phone of his own. If he warned his organization, anything Adam learned from the terrorist’s persona would be rendered worthless.

  It would take Tony and his team a couple of minutes to reach him. More than enough time for al-Rais to make a call …

  Adam ran back through the building and out of the rear door, rounding the side of the derelict structure. He paused at the corner, glancing across the tracks at the stone building. Movement behind a broken window, one of the terrorists pointing an AK toward the shore.

  He ran—

  The Kalashnikov swung toward him, but Adam raised his own gun and fired five rapid shots as he raced across the cutting. The bullets smacked off the stonework. The AK briefly jerked away from the impacts—then returned, unleashing a burst of automatic fire. Rounds sliced through the air just behind him. He fired once more, then dived headlong behind a couple of overturned mine carts.

  Snow sprayed in his face as he landed. He wiped his eyes, then ejected his SIG’s magazine. It had three bullets remaining, but he wanted to reload while he was still in cover.

  The new mag clacked home. He popped his head out from the side of the wagon, seeing broken planks piled against the stone building’s windowless sidewall, then ducked back as the gunfire resumed. Screaming ricochets bounced off the thick metal, but an AK couldn’t rock-and-roll on full auto for long …

  The gun fell silent. Now it was the terrorist’s turn to reload, the thirty rounds in the curved magazine gone.

  Adam burst out from behind the carts. He heard a warning shout, but kept running for the stacked planks. They were slippery with ice and rot, but he had enough momentum to charge up them and vault onto the roof.

  There was a large hole where decay and the weight of a winter’s snow had made a combined attack. He jumped down through it, landing with a thump inside a back room.

  Al-Rais was just six feet from him, whirling in surprise at the noise. He had a satphone in one hand, gun in the other.

  The pistol came up—

  Adam charged, slamming his shoulder into the Saudi’s stomach and driving him back against a wall. He lashed out with his gun hand, metal striking metal and sending the terrorist’s weapon clattering across the room, then whipped it back up to smash against his opponent’s skull. Al-Rais slumped to the floor.

  Movement to one side—

  Adam spun and fired three shots into the chest of one of the terrorists as he rushed into the room. The dead man tumbled to the ground.

  Where is the third? He had—

  Something hit him hard from behind.

  Adam stumbled, landing painfully beside al-Rais. Another blow struck his arm. The SIG was jarred from his hand. He cried out, twisting to look up at his attacker. It was Qasid, fumbling to reload his AK after using it as an impromptu club.

  The magazine slotted into the receiver with a solid clack. Qasid yanked back the charging handle, then pointed the gun at the downed American—

  Shock filled his face. “You! But—”

  Adam took full advantage of the moment of confusion to sweep a foot up at Qasid’s leg. The steel-reinforced toe of his boot cracked against the other man’s kneecap. The Pakistani shrieked, his leg buckling and pitching him to the floor. The AK barked as he landed, bullets tearing into the ruined ceiling. Before he could recover, Adam scrambled to him and drove a savage punch into his face. Qasid went limp.

  The American pulled the Kalashnikov from Qasid’s hand and used it as a support to get back to his feet. He checked on the two terrorists. Qasid’s face was twisted in pain, blood oozing from his nose. Al-Rais moaned, head lolling. The satphone lay nearby. A number had been entered … but not sent, the last digit missing.

  Adam kicked the terrorist’s gun away, then recovered his own pistol. “Adam!” said Holly Jo in his ear. “What’s happened?”

  “We have al-Rais,” he announced. “I repeat, we have captured Muqaddim al-Rais.”

  Bianca didn’t dare move. Curled into a tight ball, she flinched with every gunshot and scream. Who was shooting at whom? Had Adam been hit, or even killed? Was she stranded in the Russian wasteland with a group of angry terrorists?

  Even after the shooting stopped, she heard activity around the buildings. Petrified, she stayed hunched in the snow. Was she about to be saved—or shot?

  “Bianca!” Adam’s voice. “Bianca, where are you?”

  Relief rose in her heart—almost immediately stamped back down by paranoia. Was it a trick? Had he been captured, forced to draw her out of hiding? She peeked fearfully around the trunk. There were men with guns near the jetty, but she couldn’t make out their faces. Oh God, he’d been caught …

  “Bianca!”

  Another voice. Tony’s. The feeling of relief returned with full force, overcoming her coldness and fear. “Here!” she cried, jumping up. “I’m over here!”

  Figures hurried through the woods: Adam and Tony. “Are you okay?” the latter called as he approached.

  “I’m fine,” she replied gratefully. “Is everyone all right?”

  “We’re all okay,” said Adam. “We’ve captured al-Rais.”

  Tony regarded the cases. “Is the PERSONA gear okay?”

  “As far as I know,” she replied.

  “Good. We’re going to need it.”

  * * *

  “Soon as we make the recording, we should just kill this asshole,” muttered Baxter. Al-Rais had been secured with flex-cuffs, as had Qasid and the Beriev’s terrified copilot, the three survivors held at gunpoint inside the stone building. “These two as well.” He pointed his G36 at Qasid, who recoiled.

  “No!” Adam said firmly, interposing himself. “He knows something. I want to find out what.”

  “That’s not the mission. We got al-Rais, that’s all that ma
tters. Everyone else … well, I know my orders. Eliminate the terrorists and anyone helping them.”

  “What?” exclaimed Bianca, who was taking the repaired recorder from its case. “But they’re prisoners—that’s murder!”

  “It’s war. And the only prisoner we were supposed to take was al-Rais. Everyone else should have been shot, if we’d all been following orders.”

  “Nobody gave me that order,” Adam replied.

  Baxter’s only response was a look of contempt. Tony stood beside Adam. “Well, we’ve got prisoners now, so we’ll treat them by the book, okay? Besides, we can use this guy”—he indicated the copilot—“to fly the plane back to the airport.”

  “Seriously?” said Baxter in disbelief.

  “The RTG weighs over half a ton. You want to carry it all the way back? Adam, what was your assessment of it? Browning’s, I mean.”

  After finding Bianca, Adam had boarded the Be-200 with the Geiger counter to examine its cargo. “It’s not in the best condition,” he said, his borrowed persona’s clipped speech patterns unconsciously returning. “But there was no sign of radiation leakage. The casing is intact.”

  “Good.” Tony reactivated his headset. “Holly Jo? Put us through to Martin.”

  Morgan’s distorted voice came on the line. “What’s the situation?” he asked.

  “We’ve secured al-Rais and the RTG,” said Tony. “It seems to be intact and safe—as safe as these things get, anyway.”

  “Good. Will you be able to bring it back to the States?”

  “Yeah. They’d already loaded it into their seaplane.”

  “In that case, transfer it to our jet and bring it back home. Better we have it than it’s left lying around in the Russian countryside until they can be bothered to collect it. What about al-Rais?”

  “Dr. Childs is prepping the PERSONA right now.” Bianca glanced up at the mention of her name. “We’re going to make the transfer as soon as she’s ready.”