Endgame

11

Hansen had braced himself for death. He’d always imagined that if he were captured, he would use his last breath to curse his enemy and never, ever be broken. It was one of those grand dramatic moments in his mind’s eye, brought fully to life by his inflated ego and his arrogance.

And, yes, at that second when he knew Sergei would not change his mind, that his buddy from the CIA would not only kill him but record the act for his bosses, Hansen had fulfilled that promise and taken the starring role in the climax of his life. He had cursed at Sergei, yes, but his thoughts had not focused with rage on what was happening. He could only ask two questions: Was it going to hurt? And was there something more beyond this life?

The questions hung before him even as he faced the ugly truth that his own runner had been blackmailed into turning against him, and that his death wasn’t going to be glorious or noble or memorable… just pathetic.

Then came another improbable turn of events as Sergei himself was taken out by a shooter so stealthy that Hansen had wondered if the shot had come from some higher power. His father would attribute the miracle to the “visitors” who’d always been here among us. No, a little green man or a “gray” had not saved Hansen. The bullet and the blood had been real, and while the shooter was seemingly incorporeal and godlike, those facts remained.

Hansen did a quick search of the hangar but came up empty. His savior must’ve had a very good reason for concealing his identity, and that was already driving him mad with curiosity. As he frantically gathered up his gear, his neck felt warm, and he swung around and screamed again, “Who are you?”

His voice echoed off the metal walls.

It occurred to him only then — and he would later attribute the oversight to the pummeling he’d received from Rugar — that he hadn’t checked outside to be fully aware of his current situation. He rushed to the front door, eased it open, and peered out.

He saw the cars, and then… there was Bratus’s body lying supine and draped in snow.

Hansen ducked back inside and glanced at Sergei, whose head was turned to one side, his eyes as vacant as a mannequin’s. Swallowing back the bile creeping up his throat, Hansen rifled through his old friend’s pockets and found Sergei’s satellite phone, but, of course, it was password protected. He pocketed it anyway. He removed Sergei’s OPSAT, pressed the dead man’s thumb to the screen, and saw that it was still being jammed like his own. He then went to Rugar and took the fat man’s wallet and smart phone. Curiously, when he opened the Russian’s phone and tried to pull up numbers, the address book and call logs had been erased.

Outside, a car engine sputtered, and Hansen darted to the door, cracked it open, and watched as Bratus’s sedan took off, the tires spinning out and kicking up rooster tails of snow.

Hansen thought of his SC pistol, but he knew by the time he loaded another V-TRAC round, the driver would already be gone. He whirled back toward the bodies, to Sergei. Time to go.

Ames was still crouched along the tree line, shuddering with indecision as he stared through his binoculars. From his angle, he’d been unable to see who’d climbed behind the wheel of Bratus’s car. With a start, he burst from his position and ran through the snow, back toward Sergei’s car. He jumped in, turned the key, and nothing. Not a sound.

He popped the hood, climbed out, and saw that the battery cables, the spark plug wires, and a half dozen other hoses had been cut. He’d been careful to lock all the car doors. The saboteur was a chillingly efficient professional. Ames wasn’t going anywhere… but the man in Bratus’s car sure as hell was on his way.

Ames rushed back through the woods. Other than the fuel truck, there was one car left at the airport: Murdoch’s. Never mind that it was loaded with murdered Chinese pilots and crewmen, a dead Russian chauffeur, and that its driver’s-side window had been shot out; it was still the best ride in town.

Still wearing his balaclava, he was about to sprint toward the airport when he spotted a side door on the hangar swinging open. He dropped down, lifted his binoculars, and zoomed in to full power. It was Hansen, who ran to Murdoch’s car, stuck his head inside through the shattered window, then returned to the hangar.

Hansen had thrown Sergei’s body over his shoulder and was ready to get going in Murdoch’s car. That the keys were still in the ignition was the night’s second miracle — if anyone was keeping score. Still, he’d glanced longingly at the chopper, which could whisk him out of there in mere seconds.

While Hansen had his fixed-wing pilot’s license, he’d not yet added the helicopter category and class to his certificate — which at the moment was just Murphy’s Law kneeing him in the groin.

He set down Sergei near the car and, wearing his gloves, began dragging the bodies of the Chinese guys out onto the tarmac. Next was Murdoch’s driver, who’d bled all over the front seat.

Hansen gritted his teeth as he slid the man out; then he opened the back door, lifted Sergei, and set him down on the seat. He’d wrapped Sergei’s head in an oily rag so he wouldn’t have to see the gaping wound.

He was about to hop into the front seat when something thudded on one of the hangar’s tall main doors. He saw it there, in the snow… his spy plane. It had been forced down, either by the wind or by Grim, who might’ve somehow regained control of it. At any rate, the little COM-BAT was there and Hansen ran over and fetched it, then returned to the car. The only other loose end was the dart that Rugar must have pulled from his neck, and Hansen had not seen it inside the hangar.

Leaving piles of bodies in his wake — the antithesis of what a Splinter Cell ought to be doing — he took off.

In the final analysis, the mission was a colossal failure. Sure, he had confirmed that Kovac was linked to Murdoch, Bratus, and Zhao, but now with all of them dead and a massacre at the airport, the people tied to them would sever those gossamers and shrink back into hiding. Whatever they’d been doing, whatever their deal was, might never be known… unless whoever had stolen Bratus’s car was working for the NSA or another intelligence organization that would tip off Grim. But why would that operative’s identity and operation be kept secret from Hansen? Had he been tailed and watched? Was all of this part of some elaborate test?

All he could do was shake his head and try to control his breathing. He caught a glance of himself in the rearview mirror and wished he hadn’t. His eye had become a plum, and he kept tonguing his loosened molar. Oh, sure, he’d be keeping a low profile now — the guy who looked as if he’d just come from a barroom brawl. He needed to get in touch with Grim. He needed an escape plan. With his OPSAT still jammed, he couldn’t even transmit the code word “Skyfall” to tell her he was in escape-and-evasion mode. So here he was, driving through a blinding snowstorm with the body of his friend in the backseat. This was what he had wanted, what he had studied so hard for; here it all was, the glory and the excitement and the unending challenge of becoming one of the world’s most elite field operatives.

His good eye welled with tears. And just as he was about to rage aloud, his OPSAT beeped.

A slight crackle came through his subdermal, and then… “Ben, it’s me. Are you there?”

“Here, Grim.”

“You must be out of range of the jammer now.”

“I guess so.”

“Are you all right?”

“Sergei’s dead… Everyone’s dead. Something happened. Bratus shot everyone. Then someone got to him.”

“We know. Just glad you’re all right. You did well, Ben. You got us what we need.”

“If you say so. I need to get the hell out of here.”

“Just hang in there. We’ll help get you and Sergei’s body out of the country. All we need right now is for you to stay on the road and get back to Vladivostok. I’ll set up a rendezvous point for you.”

“Roger that. Someone took off in Bratus’s car.”

“We know. We’re tracking him now.”

“There’s an Anvil case in that car. I don’t know what’s inside. Zhao and Murdoch are in there, too.”

“All right. You just concentrate on the road. That weather looks horrible.”

“You saw the car leave?”

“We did.”

“Even with this weather?”

“Ben, our birds in the sky are a lot more powerful than you know. Trust me.”

But he didn’t. She knew a hell of a lot more than she was telling him, but he was too intimidated to call her on it. He wanted to tell her about the phantom shooter, but he doubted she’d be surprised. Maybe she’d assigned someone to babysit him, someone who had driven off in that car, which was why all she cared about was getting him home with Sergei’s body, tying up one final loose end. Maybe she’d known Sergei was a traitor all along.

Well, Anna Grimsdóttir wasn’t so sexy anymore. She was cool and cunning and made him feel insignificant, a pawn in her much larger game. But what had he expected? And now he knew firsthand why most operatives guard their emotions. To do otherwise would get you killed. There was only the immediacy of the mission, the task at hand, and your loyalty to your country. To think you were any more important than that was kidding yourself. He glanced back at Sergei and sighed in grief.

With the wipers thumping fast across the windshield, Hansen now leaned toward the wheel and squinted through the chutes of falling snow. He’d slipped on his trifocals, but even with night vision his visibility was down to just a few meters, and the snow kept on coming.

As he neared the petrol station, he slowed to get the tag number from a car parked under the awning; then he drove on.

Ames figured he’d pick his way into the fuel truck and drive it back to the petrol station, where he’d switch to his rental car. As he got to work on the truck’s door, he began to craft the elaborate lie he would feed to Kovac like a T-bone with all the trimmings. But once news of the massacre reached Kovac’s desk, Ames had better be well into a mission for Third Echelon or far away from the man. He could already hear himself saying, “But it’s not my fault. Either Third Echelon was on to us or someone else was. Maybe Zhao. Maybe Bratus. Maybe even that arrogant bastard Murdoch.”

Wincing over these thoughts, Ames finally got the door open, but it took him nearly ten more minutes before he got the truck started. Oh, he was a hell of a lot better with a sniper’s rifle, that was for sure, and the delay was pretty damned embarrassing, but only he would know about it. He threw the old heap in gear and lumbered through nearly a foot of snow that had fallen since they’d arrived.

With one broken wiper blade, he headed out to the petrol station, where he found that the locks on his rental car had also been picked, the wires cut. He raged aloud and got back in the truck.

He drove for about fifteen minutes before he realized that the fuel truck he was driving was about to run out of fuel. The truck sputtered to a halt halfway back to Vladivostok. Ames sat there and finally, reluctantly, got on his satellite phone and called the NSA for help.