Under Fire

  Jack made a U-turn and headed back to Bavtugay. As he reached the M29 intersection, he pulled onto the shoulder.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Ysabel.

  “I don’t like it. We’re giving him too much wiggle room. And the traffic’s heavier than I thought it’d be. We don’t know what kind of car he’s driving, and if we miss spotting him we’re screwed. Let me see the map.”

  She handed it over and Jack laid it over the steering wheel, his finger tracing along the roads surrounding Khasavyurt. The map ain’t the territory, Jack reminded himself. He should have driven more of the area. Seeing the various roads, turnarounds, and villages on a piece of paper wasn’t the same as putting eyes on those features. He needed a way to further reduce the chance of Pechkin’s taking the northern route into Khasavyurt.

  “There, right there,” he said, tapping the map. He dialed Gavin and said, “Contact Pechkin and change the meeting spot.”

  “To where?”

  “Arkabash. It’s a village about a mile south of the Yaryksu Bridge. Tell Pechkin to text you when he gets there.”

  “And if he asks why the change?”

  “Uhm . . .”

  Ysabel said, “Osin’s got a dacha down there. He’d feel safer somewhere he knows, wouldn’t he?”

  “Yeah, tell him that.”

  “Okay, hold on.” A minute later Gavin came back. “He says that’s fine.”

  Jack disconnected, called Spellman and Dom and told them about the change. He heard crinkling over the speaker as they opened their own map. “Okay, we see it,” said Dom. “He’s gotta be pretty confident of his backup to agree on a location like that.”

  With a decent sniper, home-turf advantage can be easily turned into no advantage at all.

  “Jack, I’m not fond of audibles like this,” said Spellman.

  “Me neither, but this guy makes me nervous.”

  “Well, any more changes and he’ll get nervous and abort.”

  “I know. Get set up on the Arkabash Road and we’ll take your spot at the bridge. Where is it?”

  “A small maintenance driveway or something, right side.”

  “On our way.”

  • • •

  TEN A.M. turned into eleven. Jack called Gavin. “Text him. Tell him he’s late and ask why. Try to sound nervous. Use lots of caps and exclamation marks.”

  Gavin replied, “Okay . . . it’s sent. Waiting . . .” Jack heard the ping of an incoming text message. “Okay, Pechkin says he’s running late. There was an accident east of Bavtugay. He swears he’s coming. Twenty more minutes at most.”

  “He’s buying time,” Ysabel said when Jack disconnected.

  A few minutes later, Ysabel was proven right.

  Through the thin line of trees to their left Jack saw a silver Kia Sorento cross the bridge and start slowing. The Sorento’s left-hand turn signal came on.

  “Everything’s fine, Oleg,” Jack muttered. “Keep going.”

  “You think he can see us?”

  “We’ll know in a few seconds.”

  The Sorento turned onto the Arkabash Road, then disappeared down a slight rise.

  Jack called Dom. “Let’s switch to headsets.” Once the three of them were on the portable radios, Jack said to Ysabel, “Stay here.”

  He got out and jogged across the road until he could see just over the rise. The Sorento’s taillights were bouncing as the SUV negotiated the muddy track. To the right was the river, its surging waters lapping at the bank; to the left, a short slope covered with thick grass.

  The Sorento’s brake lights came on and it coasted to a stop.

  Jack returned to the Opel. “Dom, you got one coming your way. Silver Sorento.”

  “Roger. We’re set up around the second bend a few hundred yards down. He won’t see us until he’s on us. Any sign of his overwatch?”

  “Not yet—”

  “Hold on, this might be him,” Ysabel said, tapping the window glass.

  The second car, a black Nissan sedan, appeared on the bridge, then slowed down and made the turn and disappeared from view as the Sorento had.

  Once more Jack climbed out and jogged across the road. The Nissan had pulled to a stop behind the Sorento; its driver got out, reached back into the car, and came out with a canvas rifle case. He slung it over his shoulder and trudged up the grass slope.

  Jack returned to the Opel and relayed what he’d seen to Dom. “Is there any high ground near you?” asked Jack.

  “Yeah, a hill off to our right.”

  “That’s where he’ll be coming from. Get him before he’s set up—both of you.”

  “What about—”

  “Just block the road with your Lada, then go. No shooting unless you have to.”

  “On our way.”

  Jack turned to Ysabel. “Guns.”

  She reached for the duffel in the backseat and placed it on the floorboard between her feet. She handed Jack one of the Rugers, which he tucked between his seat and the center console.

  He started the Opel, put it into gear, then crossed the road.

  • • •

  WITHOUT KNOWING how long it would take Pechkin’s sniper to reach the hill overlooking Dom and Spellman’s Lada, Jack had no choice but to spring the trap prematurely. Pechkin would almost certainly be armed, but if he and Ysabel could shut him down quickly enough he wouldn’t have time to warn his sniper.

  “Dom, we’re moving.”

  “Roger.”

  Jack waited until the Opel’s wheels bumped over the shoulder and the nose tipped down the rise on the other side, then jammed the accelerator to the floorboard.

  He mistimed it.

  The Opel’s front bumper hit the slope, plowing into the soft earth and splattering the windshield with mud. Ysabel’s head bumped against the roof and she yelped.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay!”

  The Opel’s tires bit down again and thudded into a rut, jerking the hood toward the river. Jack let up on the gas, eased the steering wheel left, and brought the car back onto the center of the road.

  He flipped on the wipers. As the windshield cleared he saw the brake lights of Pechkin’s Sorento, now a quarter-mile ahead of them, flash once, and then a fan of mud erupted from the rear tires.

  The Sorento disappeared around the next corner.

  Jack accelerated again, fighting the wheel as the Opel lurched from side to side. Ysabel glanced out her window at the roiling water. “Looks deep, Jack.”

  “I know,” he replied through gritted teeth. “Dom, where are you?”

  “Moving north. We can’t see him. We think he’s in the high grass ahead of us.”

  Jack prayed the sniper hadn’t already spotted them and was setting up.

  “Just keep him boxed in, if that’s the best you can do.”

  They approached the corner. Jack eased up on the accelerator, then aimed the hood at the slope until the grass was scraping down his window, then tapped the brakes. The Opel’s tail slid toward the riverbank. Jack spun the wheel left, punched the accelerator, and the Opel’s tail snapped back around until they were once again in the middle of the road.

  Through his headset Jack heard Dom say, “Matt, he’s on your right, coming your way.”

  “I see him. Get around him. I’ll keep him busy.”

  Ysabel shouted, “Watch out!”

  Jack glimpsed a flash of brake lights, saw the Sorento’s rear bumper looming through their windshield. He jerked the wheel and the Opel scraped down the side of the Sorento, which swerved left, shoving Jack and Ysabel into the slope. Grass and dirt peppered the windshield. Jack felt his side canting upward as the Opel’s tires were shoved sideways up the slope. Crushed between the two vehicles, Ysabel’s side mirror tore away. The window bowed inward, then spiderwebbed, pelting her face with chunk
s of glass. The ARX she’d been holding across her lap slid between Jack’s legs and onto the floorboard. He glanced sideways and saw blood on Ysabel’s face.

  “Are you—”

  “I don’t know!” she cried. “I can’t see out of my right eye!”

  “Fuck this,” he muttered.

  He reached out, pulled Ysabel down over his lap, then lifted the Ruger and fired four rounds out her window into the Sorento’s door. He turned the wheel, driving the Opel’s hood against the SUV, giving them half a foot of leeway, then stomped on the brake. The Sorento surged past them. The Opel dropped to the ground, once again level. Jack saw the Sorento’s brake lights blink, then the nose veered left as Pechkin tried to again bulldoze them against the slope.

  Jack stomped on the accelerator and spun the wheel right and rammed the Opel’s nose into the Sorento’s rear quarter-panel, shoving it sideways a couple of feet. The mud did the rest. The Sorento spun. As its hood came around to face them, the Opel raked down its side.

  Jack saw water loom out the side window. The Opel tipped sideways and the tires slipped off the bank. The hood plunged into the river. Water crashed over the windshield and began gushing through Ysabel’s shattered window and onto her lap. She screamed, her eyes caked with blood, then she started climbing through the window.

  “No!” Jack shouted. “Not that way!”

  The river’s current would carry her away in seconds.

  He clamped his hand on her forearm and pulled her against his body. Her window tilted downward, now fully immersed. Ysabel slipped back and slid beneath the surface. He lost his grip on her arm. Her hands reached for him. He grabbed her arm, pulled her back into the air, then brought her hand to his belt and shouted, “Grab on.”

  Jack fumbled between his legs until his hand touched the ARX; he lifted it and pointed the barrel at his window. He closed his eyes and turned his face away, then pulled the trigger. The window shattered outward.

  “Just keep ahold of me and climb!” he shouted.

  “I can’t see!”

  “Climb!”

  Jack’s window was now pointing straight up; through it he saw blue sky. Brown water surged over the door and into the Opel’s interior. With his left hand Jack grabbed the door frame, pressed his right foot against the dashboard, then pushed and pulled at the same time. His head lifted clear of the window. Still gripping the ARX, he stuck his elbow out, braced it against the frame, then levered his torso free. Ysabel’s fingers dug into the skin of his waist.

  On the road the Sorento had come to a stop diagonally across the road. The door swung open. Pechkin climbed out, a revolver in his right hand. He half stumbled in the mud and fell to his side. His left pant leg was black with blood; one of the Ruger’s bullets had struck home. Pechkin pushed himself to his knees. He spotted Jack. He raised the revolver.

  In that moment Jack was struck by the absurdity of the situation: It was the first time he was seeing Oleg Pechkin in the flesh and the man was pointing a gun at his head. Worst introduction in history, he thought.

  With the ARX still acting as a brace on the window frame, Jack swiveled the barrel toward Pechkin and pulled the trigger. His three-round burst went wide, peppering the Sorento’s quarter-panel. Pechkin’s gun bucked; the Opel’s side mirror exploded. Pechkin fired again; the bullet smacked into the Opel’s door frame. Jack rotated the ARX slightly left, thumbed the selector switch to full auto, and squeezed the trigger. The bullets walked sideways down the Sorento, shattering windows and punching holes in the side panels until the rounds reached Pechkin, stitching him diagonally from collarbone to ribs. Already dead, he tipped over backward into the mud with his legs bent beneath him.

  Jack called into his headset, “Guys we need help! Where are—”

  Over the Sorento’s roof, Jack saw Dom and Spellman skid to a halt at the top of the slope.

  • • •

  WHATEVER THE OPEL lacked in amenities or aesthetics was made up by the quality of its tempered glass. Though Ysabel’s facial cuts were plentiful, they were all superficial, the safety glass having shattered into chunks no bigger than half-dollars. Once Jack had rinsed away the blood caked over her cheeks and eyebrows, he saw her eyes were undamaged.

  Though she wasn’t crying, she stared vacantly at the ground. Jack knew the look; he’d worn it himself. He put an arm around her shoulders.

  As he and Ysabel looked on, Dom and Spellman first placed Pechkin’s corpse inside the Sorento, then that of the sniper they’d killed on the hillside. Their guns went in next, and then they put the SUV in neutral and rolled it into the river, where it quickly disappeared beneath the roiling surface.

  Whether Ysabel’s reaction was from relief, adrenaline overload, the shock of what had just happened, or a mix of all three, Jack didn’t blame her. His heart was still pounding and he was having trouble catching his breath. He tried to convince himself they would have gotten out of the Opel no matter what, but he knew it wasn’t true. They’d almost died. If Pechkin’s bullets hadn’t done the job, the river would have.

  He shouldn’t have hurried the trap, he thought. Or better still, he shouldn’t have gone after Pechkin at all. What good would his capture have done them, really? Had he expected Pechkin would break down and give them some secret code word that would make Wellesley throw his hands up? If anything, losing his Russian partner would only make the SIS man cagier.

  He’d been too clever by half and it had almost gotten Ysabel, Dom, and Spellman killed. Arrogance, Jack. He should have just lured Pechkin to a remote spot outside Makhachkala and double-tapped him. Seeing this image in his head, Jack felt a chill. It would have been so simple—too simple to do, should the need arise again.

  Careful, Jack. The world in which he worked was a gray one, where people often mistook the ability to do a thing with the righteousness of the thing itself.

  Dom and Spellman walked up.

  “Nothing in the guy’s Nissan,” Spellman said. “It’s a rental. There are no serial numbers on their weapons, either.” He handed Jack a pair of cell phones. “Maybe we can do something with those.”

  “Let’s go home.”

  Makhachkala

  I SCREWED UP, JOHN,” he said over the phone. “I forgot the first rule: Keep it simple, stupid.”

  “It happens,” Clark said.

  After making sure they’d policed the crime scene as well as possible, the four of them got into Dom’s Lada and drove back to Makhachkala. They found Seth sitting alone at the conference table. Medzhid and his bodyguards and assistants weren’t around. “Nothing new,” Seth had called, as Spellman joined him, and Ysabel and Jack walked back to their mini-suite. Ysabel went to sleep and Jack called home.

  “John, I almost got them all killed—and I’m not talking about some kind of notional, ‘Whew, that was close’ bullshit. It’s just dumb luck Ysabel’s alive. What the hell was I thinking?”

  “That’s for you to sort out.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Learn the lesson. And give yourself a break. You made a choice, things went bad, and you’re accountable.”

  “Isn’t that a nice way of saying I’m to blame?”

  “Call it what you want, I don’t care, just don’t play semantics with yourself. Christ, Jack, did you think you were going to get through your career without having this kind of close call?”

  Jack considered this. “Yeah, I think I did, actually.”

  “Then you were lying to yourself. You gotta stop doing that—and right fucking now, before things get going there.”

  “I’m going to send Ysabel back to Tehran.”

  Clark chuckled. “Good luck with that. From what you’ve told me, you’d have better luck pissing up a rope. Don’t insult her, Jack. She’s an adult. If she wants to stay, don’t try to talk her out of it. Plus, it sounds like she’s not exactly a liability.”
r />   They talked for a few more minutes and then Jack had Clark transfer him to Gavin, who asked, “How’d it go with Pechkin?”

  “Not so well. He’s dead. We’ve got his cell phone.”

  And now we see which of Medzhid’s bodyguards has turned, he thought. The idea of it gave him pause that he probably wouldn’t have felt eight hours ago. Even catching Anton and Vasim by surprise wouldn’t be without its dangers. They’d have to choose the time and place carefully.

  Jack said good-bye and hung up. Quietly he slipped into their bedroom and lay down beside Ysabel; she stirred and edged a bit closer, pressing her body against his.

  “I want you to stop, Jack,” she whispered.

  “Stop what?”

  “You’re playing it in your head, over and over.”

  “It was too close. I’m sorry, Ysabel.” Hearing himself say the words made them seem even more inadequate.

  Ysabel reached across his body, gently grabbed his hand, and brought his fingertips to her face. “They’re just scratches, Jack. They’ll heal.”

  “It could be a lot worse.”

  “That’s exactly my point.”

  “I got cocky,” he replied. “With guys like Pechkin and Wellesley, you don’t make things up as you go.”

  “Then call it a lesson learned and forgive yourself.”

  “Funny, I just got the same advice from someone else.”

  “I heard you talking on the phone out there. Is that who you mean?”

  Jack nodded. “John.”

  “And what else did he tell you?” she asked.

  “That I’m an idiot and you should go back to Tehran.”

  She slapped him lightly on the chest. “Liar.”

  “He said if I tried to send you home you wouldn’t go, so don’t bother. I think there was something about pissing up a rope in there, too.”

  “A very smart man, this John. Sorry, Jack, I’m here with you until the end.”