Ghosts

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The six minute call. The ramp of the C-17 opened, slowly lowering and letting moonlight spill into the darkened cabin of the plane. The fresh air was a welcome relief. Milton used the fabric ties attached to the walls of the plane to pull himself upright and took a step forwards. They were up high, thirty thousand feet, and the landscape below was indistinct. Milton was wearing arctic battle gear: his field jacket had a hood concealed in a zipper pocket at the back of the collar, four large cargo pockets and a double zipper. He had buttoned in a separate Gore-Tex liner for additional warmth, he was wearing polypropylene knit undergarments and full face goggles over a balaclava that was unrolled all the way down to his throat. Right now, he was breathing pure oxygen through a mask to prevent nitrogen bubbles forming in his bloodstream. He stared out of the open end of the plane. It was minus forty outside and, were it not for the goggles, his eyes would have frozen instantly.

The jumpmaster signalled that they were ready to start the jump. Milton stood back as they released the drogue parachute that was attached to the first of the three Snowmobiles on which they had stowed the rest of their gear. The chute snapped open and dragged the skidoo backwards. It clicked across the metal rollers that were arranged across the width of the cabin, started to pick up speed as it rolled down the ramp and then disappeared out the back of the plane. They opened the chutes on the second and third skidoos and watched as they followed the first into the night. The plan was to drop their vehicles and gear first and then have the agents follow behind. Milton watched as the three main parachutes opened and the skidoos started their slow, gentle descent onto the snowy plains below.

The plan was simple enough. The Russians had permitted the C-17 free passage into their airspace. It had taken four hours to reach Kubinka. The Hercules had been refuelled and the Russians had loaded the three skidoos. They had been on the ground for an hour, long enough for Milton to stretch his legs and smoke a couple of cigarettes before they took off again. The jump point was over the horizon from Plyos to ensure that the guards at the dacha didn’t see their chutes. Surprise was critical. Their chances of success would be drastically reduced, practically eliminated, if Shcherbatov’s men knew that they were coming. A High-Altitude, Low Opening jump was the best way of ensuring stealthy infil; they would exit the aircraft while it was still plenty high, open the main chute after a long freefall and then glide the canopy all the way to the target. They would land twenty kilometres away from the jump point.

Milton did his last-minute checks and, satisfied, walked to the ramp.

The jumpmaster pointed out the back.

Number Two jumped and then, a moment later, so did Six, Eight and Nine. Milton was left with Ten at the lip of the ramp, both of them looking down at the ground, mantled with ice, thousands of feet below.

“After you,” Callan shouted, making an extravagant sweeping gesture with his right arm.

Milton nodded, not willing to engage him, and dived off the ramp.

He fell for seventy-five seconds at terminal velocity, following the line of dots below him. He had an altimeter strapped to his wrist but he had jumped hundreds of times before and didn’t need it. He knew the time to open the canopy and, as he reached the right moment, he yanked the handle and watched the main chute billow out overhead. His speed sheared to twenty miles an hour and his body pulled five Gs. The noise of the airplane’s engines and the whistling rush of the wind disappeared and everything was silent. The stars spread out above him, diamonds sprinkled over the vault of night. Milton tugged the straps to make himself a little more comfortable and aligned himself with the others, further along in the descent, their black canopies swooping out like wings above them as they stacked for landing. Milton closed his eyes for a moment and composed himself. The only sounds were the chute snapping overhead and his breathing, deep and easy. Milton opened his eyes again and, with his right hand, snapped the night vision optics down from the rail system that was attached to the side of his helmet. The landscape below was suddenly bathed in a wash of eerie green. It looked peaceful and, more importantly, empty. He touched the controls and selected infra-red; he saw a couple of heat sources but satisfied himself that they were animals. A couple of Elk, drinking at a stream, about to get a surprise.

The agents below swooped in, landed twenty feet from the nearest skidoo and immediately began to stow their chutes. Milton dropped to twenty feet, flared the parachute and landed on his feet. He unhooked his harness worked it over his shoulders and away. He heard the flapping of Callan’s canopy as he circled overhead, dropping suddenly and landing alongside with the same practiced ease that comes of repetition. Spenser and Underwood used retractable shovels to excavate a narrow trench and they each stuffed their canopies inside, covering them up again with the snow until the only sign that they had been there was the disturbed drift.

That would be righted soon enough. As Milton crunched across to the skidoo a snowflake landed on his nose. Thirty seconds later and a blizzard had started.

Milton looked at the others with wary caution. They were checking their weapons for damage from the jump, ensuring for a final time that magazines were full and that their complement of grenades and blasting charges had not fallen from their pockets or been detached from the velcro holding straps. They worked quickly and in silence, completely professional. Each one of them was lethally dangerous. Trust was impossible and yet, each of them had to cover the back of the others if the mission was to be a success. Milton had thought about whether to ask for more bodies. He had even considered asking for every operational member of the Group but he had decided that they stood a better chance with a smaller, more agile unit. The six of them would be a match for twice as many guards, but success depended upon the element of surprise and ruthless execution of the plan. There were variables: perhaps Shcherbatov had increased the security, maybe Pope had been moved after all.

There was nothing that could be done about things that were out of his control.

Their weapons had been strapped to the chassis of the skidoos. Milton undid the bindings around his M4 and checked the carbine and the M320 grenade launcher that was slung beneath it. Both had survived the descent without damage. He removed the magazine and then pushed it back again. The carbine was shorter than a full length rifle and better suited to close quarters combat. It was a good gun but dependant upon regular cleaning; Milton had taken it to bits and reassembled it after he had finished with his handgun. He had his Sig in a shoulder holster, four magazines for the M4 in a mag pouch, two hundred rounds of ammunition, six fragmentation grenades, two blasting charges and a Benchmade Infidel knife.

There were three Snowmobiles and six of them. Milton straddled the nearest skidoo and started the engine. The headlamp flicked on, a beam of golden light filled with fat flakes of snow. Hammond crunched through the crust of snow and rode pillion. The others got onto their own vehicles, two to each machine. The other two engines started with issue. Milton took off the goggles, shoved them into his Bergen and replaced them with a pair of Oakley Ballistics.

“One, Group,” Milton announced into the radio. “Comms check.”

“This is Eight. Comms check affirmative.”

“Two, affirmative.”

“Six, loud and clear.”

“Nine, check is good.”

“Ten, affirmative.”

He consulted his satnav. “Twenty clicks,” he said. “Couple of hours provided the road is where it’s supposed to be,”

“And that it’s clear,” Hammond said.

“Don’t worry about that. Ivan keeps his roads open, no matter what. It’ll be clear.”

Chapter Forty

It took them a couple of hours to reach Plyos. They hid the Snowmobiles in the grounds of an empty dacha on the edge of the village and tracked the rest of the way on foot. The six of them were split into three teams: Alpha Team was Spenser and Underwood; Bravo Team was Milton and Callan; Charlie Team was Blake and Hammond. On Milton’s signal they dispersed to their prearranged attack points. Milton and Callan scaled the side of an empty barn that, from the gently sloping roof, offered a good view of Shcherbatov’s dacha.

Milton watched as Alpha and Charlie Teams took their positions. Spenser and Underwood ducked behind a parked car a hundred feet from the entrance to the dacha. Blake and Hammond held position behind a low wall.

The roof was thick with snow and Milton sunk down deep into it as he lay flat. Callan took position next to him, settling his M110 semi-auto sniper rifle on its bipod and taking aim through the scope. Below them and away to the east, Spenser was prone on the ground beneath an old Soviet-era Lada that was so buried beneath snow that it couldn’t have been moved for weeks. He, too, had set up his rifle and was taking aim.

Milton swept the IR binoculars left and right, studying the dacha. He matched the compound’s layout against the video from the overflight of a Russian TU-300 Korshun drone from earlier that afternoon and what he could remember from his brief visit earlier that week. Everything was just as it should be. It was encircled by high stone walls with a large decorative wooden gate guarding the entrance. Beyond that was a short drive through a thicket of trees. Two large buildings, the main residence and a smaller guest house, had been constructed inside with a neat and tidy courtyard between the two. A Russian army jeep was parked near to the residence. An armoured Tiger personnel transport was next to the jeep.

He focussed on the heat traces from the guards.

“One, Group. Eyes on four tangos: two lookouts on the first floor, east and west third floor balconies. Two foot patrols, one at the gates and another in the grounds.”

“Two, One,” Spenser responded. “Guard dogs?”

“Negative. I’m just getting those four. The others will be inside.”

“Six, One. Can you see what they’re carrying?”

“AK-9s, AS-Vals,” Milton reported. “They’ve got night vision goggles. Can anyone make out an officer?”

No-one could.

“No sergeant, either. If anyone is here, he’s keeping warm inside.”

“See the Tiger?” Callan reported. “Engine’s cold, fresh snow on the roof, been there a while.”

“Affirmative. Could come in useful. Can anyone see anything else? No roving patrols?”

The replies came back in the negative.

“One, Nine. Have you confirmed all phone and power and data lines are above ground?”

“Confirmed,” Underwood said. “I’ll cut them on command.”

“Alright then. We’ll assume half a dozen inside…”

“Unfair odds for them,” Underwood said.

“But there’s a chance that they’ve got a relief bivouac down in the village. We’ll have to be quick and alive to avoid getting flanked.”

The mission had been constructed with a thirty minute envelope in mind. Local Russian security forces and police would know that they were here soon enough and they didn’t want to be in situ when they arrived. There would be no immunity for them if they were caught. They would be cut loose and left high and dry.

“We know what we’re doing, Milton,” Spenser radioed back tersely.

Spenser was the ranking agent. Milton taking control must have rankled him.

Tough shit.

“One, Group. All units, safeties off, weapons tight.”

Milton held the glasses to his eyes and waited an extra second, just to be sure.

“Alpha, Bravo, Charlie. Status check, comms check, sound off. On my mark.”

He watched a moment longer, waiting for the guard on the facing balcony to turn his head away.

“Execute.”

Milton lay still and observed. The opening of the assault was terrifying in its efficiency. Underwood cut the power to the compound and all of the lights were extinguished at once, plunging it into darkness. Just as the lights cut out, Spenser and Callan fired single shots from their suppressed rifles. Milton watched through the IR; he could see the tracks of the bullets, made hotter by friction with the air, like tracer fire. The guards on the two balconies were both struck, one of them toppling over the balustrade and thudding into the deep drift beneath.

Hammond, who had crept from cover to cover until she was behind twenty feet from the gate, popped up and squeezed off two, short, silenced bursts. Another spray of tracer in the goggles. The guards who had been stationed at the street entrance were peppered and fell to the ground.

“One, Group. Weapons free, let’s go and get Pope.”

Chapter Forty-One

“Going explosive, main gate,” Hammond said over the troop net.

Milton had stowed the binoculars, pulled down his goggles and switched to night vision. They had dismounted the building quickly and sprinted for the muster point at the dacha’s gate. He could see Hammond, kneeling down at the wooden gates and slapping the explosive to the lock. Blake, Spenser, Underwood and Callan were arrayed behind her, pulling security, their weapons focussed on the hole that she was about to create.

“Fire in the hole.”

Here we go.

Hammond hit the detonator and the blast buckled the gate right down the middle. Spenser was the first to attack it, kicking and yanking at the rent until it was wide enough for the others to pass through. Milton was the last to pass inside, turning his body so that his gear didn’t snag against the sharp edges of the split wood.

Beyond the gate was the small courtyard.

The six of them communicated over the troop net as they split up into their assigned roles. Milton and Callan’s first target was to clear was the guesthouse. It was secured by a set of metal double doors with a glass window slit across the top; a window to the right had bars across the glass. There was no light in the windows and that made Milton nervous. The Russians would definitely have heard them breach the gate which meant that anyone here had either moved to the main building or they were inside, waiting in ambush.

Callan let him go first. It wasn’t because of cowardice; Milton was quite sure that a psychopath like Callan was not prey to something as mundane as fear. He wanted Milton in front of him so that he could keep an eye on him and so, perhaps, that he could put a bullet into his back once they had achieved their objective.

Milton tried the handle. It was locked. He unlatched his sledgehammer from the back of his kit and pulled out the extendable handle. He struck the lock with a hard downward swipe. The hammer clashed into the knob but it was strong and didn’t break. He tried again with no more luck.

“One, Group,” he radioed. “Going explosive.”

He stepped back, reaching around again but this time for a breaching charge. He peeled the adhesive backing from the charge and was on one knee, ready to place it, when the doors were suddenly flung open. A guard was above him, firing out in a wild burst. Milton rolled to the side, the rounds passing above his head. He was fortunate that he was already down or they would have cut him in half. He saw movement inside, a figure revealed as his goggles adapted to the deeper darkness inside the room. He brought up the M4 and squeezed off a tight volley, catching the man diagonally across his body and dropping him to the ground.

A second man appeared at the back of the room. Callan fired, the rounds whistling above Milton’s head and stitching a dozen bullets into his head and torso.

“Shots fired,” Callan reported. “Tangos down.”

The door had swung backwards again, half closing. Milton got up and approached it cautiously, nudging it open with the barrel of his rifle. He heard a voice calling out. He tightened the grip on his weapon. He saw a figure in the green glow of his night vision goggles. It was a woman. He held his breath, nudging the M4 around until the infrared laser sight rested on her head. She was holding something. Milton held the laser sight steady. He felt the give of the trigger beneath his index finger. She stepped forward; Milton gave the trigger a little more pressure; she changed her stance, revealing a baby in her arms.

“Stay where you are,” he said in Russian.

“Don’t shoot.”

Callan stepped up behind him and a second laser sight flashed across the woman’s face.

Milton held up a hand to hold him back.

“Who are you?”

“Just nanny.”

Two additional children appeared behind her, hiding behind the black fabric of her dress.

“Come forward,” Milton called out.

He kept the sight steady on her forehead as she did as she was told, the children holding onto her legs.

“You killed them,” the woman said. “They are dead.”

“Who are they?”

“Guards. The colonel’s men.”

Milton glanced beyond her. The night vision revealed a pair of feet in the doorway of the room, pointing up to the ceiling. Callan aimed down and fired two shots into the body, then aimed at the second body and repeated the trick.

“One, Group. Guesthouse secure at this time,” Milton reported over the troop net. He cracked a chemlight and dropped it at the guesthouse’s front door to indicate the the building was safe.

“Is the colonel here?”

“I believe,” she said.

“And the Englishman who was here a few days ago?”

“Yes,” she said. “Definitely. Guards for him.”

“Where? The basement?”

“No. In bedroom. Third floor. He is sick.”

“Stay here,” he said. “Don’t come out, not for anyone. We’ll be gone in ten minutes.”

Milton and Callan hurried the courtyard. “One, Group,” he spoke into the throat mike. “Pope is not in the basement. They may have moved him to a third floor bedroom.”

“Two, One,” Spenser said. “Copy that. We’re splitting.”

Milton slid behind a low wall and brought his rifle up to bear on the dacha. There were two exterior doors, north and south, and they had divided the team so that they could control both. Milton was not able to say for sure whether there was a corridor connecting the two doors. If there was, detonating charges on both doors at the same time could lead to explosive overpressure which would be unpredictable and dangerous. They had decided that Spenser and Underwood would attack the north door first and then Callan and Milton would breach the south. Blake and Underwood would retreat to the main gate for surveillance and crowd control and, if they needed it, reinforcement.

Callan prepared his charge, slapping it against the door and pulling back to wait for the order to blow it. Milton held his position, his laser showing green through his night vision as it danced across the wall of the building.

Spenser detonated the charge on the door on the other side of the building. Milton heard shots being fired: it was a close, controlled burst, from a weapon fitted with a suppressor. Likely an M4. There was a pause and then return fire, unsuppressed, the ragged chack chack chack of Russian AN-94s.

“Heavy resistance,” Spenser reported in a calm voice, bullets ricocheting nearby. “Five or six soldiers, all behind cover. This isn’t going to be easy.”

“One, Alpha. Get well back. We’ll blow the door from this side. Ten will attack from behind them. Use smoke. Copy?”

“Copy. What about you?”

“I’m going to go up.”

Milton heard suppressed fire across the radio. “Copy, One. We’re out of the way.”

He turned to Callan. “Initiate.”

Callan detonated the breaching charge. The rolling boom echoed around the courtyard and the door blew inwards. It fell so that it was blocking their path inside and so, with Callan covering him, Milton went forwards and yanked it until he had moved it out of the way. The blast had knocked a soldier backwards, the pressure slamming him into the wall. He was knocked out cold. Callan aimed and fired two shots into his head. Milton watched with a mixture of horror and appreciation; he was utterly ruthless.

“Successful breach.”

Callan took two smoke grenades from his bandolier, popped them and tossed them down the corridor to the room in which the Russians had made their stand. Alpha Team had already thrown their grenades and the room was quickly filling with dense, impenetrable smoke. Milton doubted that they would have been equipped with IR goggles. He heard the rattle of automatic fire, some suppressed, most not. The Russians were firing at shadows. Callan, Spenser and Hammond were picking off their targets carefully and efficiently

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Chapter Forty-Two

Milton put the noise of the firefight behind him as he started clearing up the stairs. There were no lights and it was suspiciously devoid of activity. He took a right turn and made his way slowly up. The stairs were tiled, and a little slippery, and he moved with exaggerated care. Each stair was set at a ninety degree angle to the landing and half-landing above with the result that it would have been very simple to prepare an ambush; anyone with an automatic weapon would be able to unleash a volley as soon as he made the landing, holding him and anyone else behind him in place. And they could not afford delay.

He reached the first floor. No lights had been lit. There were three bedrooms, including the ones in which Milton and Anna had slept. The bedrooms were empty.

There was a long rattle of gunfire below.

“One, Group. Report.”

“Three down,” Spenser said. “Two, maybe three left. They’re dug in.”

“Copy that. First floor clear. Ascending to second.”

Milton turned the corner onto the second floor landing. There was a narrow hallway, featureless and spare, with a darkened archway at the end that should, if his understanding of the drone intel was correct, open onto a terrace running along the south side of the building. The corridor had four doors: the first two were near to where Milton was standing and the others towards the archway. Milton nudged his goggles so that they were more comfortably pressed against his eyes and made his way carefully down the hall, stopping at the first door before opening it with the point of his weapon and clearing inside. He opened the door to the adjacent room and cleared that, too. He continued along the corridor, clearing the remaining two rooms. All empty.

He moved towards the stairs.

He heard footsteps.

He saw a flash of movement just above and fired, his suppressed M4 announcing contact with a BUP BUP BUP. Moments later, a bloodied body, dressed in Russian army fatigues, slid down the stairs, flipped over onto its back and came to a stop. Milton put another two rounds into the man’s head. Blood slicked down the tile treads of the stairs like the glistening path of a snail.

“Shots fired,” Milton reported. “Tango down.”

Another one. Was that it?

The troop net buzzed with Blake’s voice. “Six, Group. We’re outside the main gate. We’ve got activity.”

“Two, Six. How bad?”

“Maybe a dozen coming our way. Lights on in a few houses.”

“Keep them back,” Spenser said. “Two, one. Update, please.”

Milton spoke, whispering into his mike: “Going to third floor. Proceeding now.”

There couldn’t be much further to climb. The stairwell was dark, no lights anywhere, but Milton’s goggles gave him a good enough view. It had grown narrow, especially for a man wearing thirty pounds of kit, and he moved carefully and diligently, taking no chances. He looked and listened for signs of movement, the sound of a round being chambered, anything; he got nothing. He was put in mind of the countless times he had been through the Killing House during SAS Selection all those years ago: a twenty mile run so that they were exhausted and then a smoke-filled series of rooms, cut out terrorists popping out from cover, live rounds fired into the cut outs, and do it all again. That had been hard, and Milton had often resented it, but not now.

He climbed, reached the top of the stairs and turned the corner, onto the landing. His palms and fingers were slicked with sweat and he wiped his right against his combat pants so that he had a better feel of the trigger. The landing was short, a waist high balustrade looking down onto the final flight of stairs, leading into a constricted hallway. There was a door at the end that led onto the balcony; he could see a narrow sliver of midnight sky through the narrow slit of window, a sprinkling of stars, a quarter of moon.

The shooting downstairs had stopped.

“Two, Group. Seven tangos down. Ground floor clear.”

Halfway along the corridor were two doors, one on each side.

Milton proceeded slowly down the corridor, his gun up.

A switch was flicked and light crashed into Milton’s night vision, blinding him, and then he was grabbed by the lapels and hauled into one of the rooms, the M4 pressed impotently up against his chest. He was still blind as someone yanked him around and slammed him hard against the wall, forcing the rifle from his grip and sending it clattering to the floor. He was punched in the gut once and then twice and then a third time, and then a fourth blow dinged him on the point of his chin and the room dimmed for a moment. He was bounced off the wall again and, when he stumbled back in the other direction, a garrote looped over his head and it was only instinct that saw him stab his right hand inside the noose to stop it closing around his throat. His assailant grunted as he yanked the wire tight; Milton staggered back into his body and felt slabs of muscle. The wire bit into the soft flesh of his hand as he stamped down with the heel of his boot, raking the shin of the man behind him. The man’s grip did not falter and so Milton brought both legs up and kicked off the wall, sending both of them stumbling across the room like drunks. They hit a bed, bouncing off the mattress onto the floor beyond.

He swept his arm upwards, knocking the goggles from his face. The big soldier who had surprised him was already up. He had short cropped hair, hate filled eyes, his shoulders and arms heavy with muscle. Milton recognised him: it was Vladimir, the driver of the car that had brought him to Plyos with Anna.

There was blood on his wrist from where the wire had cut into his flesh.

Vladimir shone a smile that was full of bad intentions at him, reaching down and unsheathing a knife from the scabbard on his belt. He brought it up, the bright light shivering down the serrated edge, and passed it between both hands as he prowled towards Milton. Milton had no time to go for his pistol as Vladimir swung the knife into his ribs; Milton swept his right arm around to block the swipe, their wrists clashing. He jabbed and Milton swung to the side, then he slashed down and the blade sliced through the fabric of his shirt and opened up a six-inch gash on his forearm.

Jags of pain scorched up from the wound.

The Russian changed tactics and charged him, driving him backwards again. Milton tripped on the edge of a rug and they fell, Milton underneath him, pressed down by the bigger man’s weight. He smelt the sharp tang of vodka and sweat. Vladimir pinioned Milton’s left hand with his right and, the knife in his left hand, pushed down. The knife started above his nose, close enough for him to see his own eye reflected in the steel, and then it jerked downwards, the point catching on the skin above his jawline and scratching a bloody furrow as it tracked down towards his throat.

Milton had his weaker left hand around Vladimir’s wrist, but all he could do was slow the progress.

“Blyadischa,” Vladimir growled through his grunts of exertion.

The point of the knife drew blood as it pressed down on his throat, the first few milimeters sinking into his flesh.

Milton worked his right leg free and drove his knee into the Russian’s crotch. His mouth gaped open and he released Milton’s right hand and he seized his chance, flashing down to the scabbard on his thigh and tearing out his own knife. He drew back his wrist so that the tip pointed upwards and punched it into Vladimir’s chest. The strength drained out of him immediately. Milton locked his hand around the hilt of the Benchmade, twisted it and thrust it up into his heart.

He pushed the big man off him.

He saw movement in the doorway.

His right hand went to his shoulder holster, bringing out the Sig.

He rolled onto his stomach and aimed in a single, fluid motion.

Pascha Shcherbatov was stooping for the M4 he had dropped.

“Don’t,” Milton said, his breath still ragged.

Shcherbatov stood. And raised his hands.

“I am unarmed. I surrender.”

Milton got up. Blood was running freely from the cut on the side of his hand and after he dabbed his fingers against his throat they were stained red. His jacket was tacky with the Russian’s blood. He wiped the gore from his hand against his trousers and took a step towards the colonel.

“Hands on your head,” Milton ordered.

Shcherbatov did as he was told, lacing his fingers and resting his hands on his head.

He indicated with the gun and Shcherbatov stepped away from the M4, heading back into the corridor. Milton gestured that he should keep going and he went back into the room adjacent to the one where Vladimir had hidden from him.

It was dark. Milton brought the goggles back down again.

Ahead of him, against the sloping wall, was a narrow bed. There was someone on the bed.

“Very good, Captain Milton. I am impressed.”

He activated the torch attached to his helmet rails and a sharp, bright beam of white light trained onto Shcherbatov’s face. He winced, a hand automatically coming down to shield his eyes.

“On your head!”

Shcherbatov replaced his hand and looked away.

“Anyone else up here?”

“No.”

“Just Vladimir?”

“That is right.”

Milton turned the light onto the bed. Pope was laid out there. He looked worse than when Milton had seen him before. He was unshaven, with thick curls of beard, brown streaked with grey. His eyes were rheumy and uncertain and there were fresh bruises on his face.

“I did not expect this,” Shcherbatov said. “It is Control’s doing?”

“No. All my own work, I’m afraid.”

“How many of you?”

“Six.”

He looked surprised. “An armed incursion onto Russian soil? That is a dangerous precedent for a little thing such as this.”

“Don’t worry,” Milton said. “We had help.”

“My comrades in Red Square, I presume?”

“What can I say? Turns out you’re not a very popular fellow.”

Milton turned the lights back onto Shcherbatov’s face and he squinted into them again. He laughed. “Then my congratulations, Captain. You have outmanoeuvred me.”

“Pope,” Milton called out. “Wake up.”

“Do not concern yourself. He has been well treated.”

“Is that right?”

“He has pneumonia. A doctor has been attending to him. He is not in danger.”

“Pope.”

“What will happen now, Captain Milton? You will finish the job you failed to do when we first met?”

“Pope.”

“I am not afraid of death.”

Milton had thought long and hard during the flight to Kubinka. Shcherbatov was not his enemy, not really, despite what he had done to Pope. The man wanted revenge for what had happened to Semenko and using him was his means to that end; that, Milton concluded, was reasonable. Milton was similarly inclined. They had both been burned by Control. His thoughts ran back to an innocent man, gunned down in cold blood in East London. He thought of all the men and women he had been sent to kill in the name of the state. He thought of the doubts that he now harboured about those jobs, about how many of them had been legitimate targets, deserving of the fate that he had dealt them. Really, how many? Two-thirds? Half? His doubts would never be answered as long as Control was in place at the head of Group Fifteen. But things might be different if he was removed.

That was the big picture; but it also served both him and Beatrix very well to leave Control with a problem that he would not be able to solve.

Shcherbatov’s arms were spread. “Please, Captain. You must do what you must.”

“I’m not going to shoot you, Colonel. I’m going to give you what you want.”

He tore open his thigh pocket and was reaching his fingers down into it when he heard footsteps behind him. His hand stopped as he half-turned, the beams of light raking across the wall towards the darkness of the doorway, just in time to see the muzzle flashes from Callan’s suppressed M4.

He turned back into the room.

Shcherbatov was on the floor. Callan had shot him cleanly in the head. Three rounds. The was blood and brain matter around the entry wound. He was still moving a little, the last spasms that would precede a certain death, but Callan trained his laser on the old man’s chest and fired two more rounds into him to hasten him towards his exit. The body spasmed again and then fell still.

“Ten, Group. Last man down.”

Milton turned to him, his fists clenched. “What are you doing?”

“We had orders, Milton. Everyone here is to be eliminated. No witnesses.”

“Those weren’t my orders.”

Callan was impassive. “You don’t work for us any more. I don’t take my orders from you.”

Milton surreptitiously sealed the pocket again, leaving the drives where they were.

“Six, Group,” Blake reported over the radio. “Hurry, please. There’s more of them on the way out here.”

“Bring him,” Callan said, indicating Pope with the muzzle of his M4.

Milton knew that the terrain was shifting beneath him.

He pulled his CamelBak hose from his kit and held it in front of Pope’s chapped lips.

“John?” he said, his voice weak.

“You’ve got to get up, Pope.”

“We need to move now,” Blake said. “I can hear police.”

Spenser’s voice was tense. “Ten, report.”

“Ten, Group,” Callan said. “Third floor secure.”

“Two, Ten. Copy that. Mission status?”

“Affirmative, Ten. SNOW is down.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Milton and Callan helped Pope down the stairs. He was barely able to support himself and Milton wasn’t sure if he had even recognised him. They reached the ground floor and then the courtyard. He clasped his fingers around Pope’s belt for a better grip as they picked him up and hurried towards the outside gate.

There were lights on in most of the nearby dachas; the residents had been awakened by the explosions and the gunfire. Milton could see the silhouettes of locals in their windows and perhaps two dozen had come outside and were climbing up the hill towards them. They were keeping a cautious distance, wary of the soldiers, but some of the more intrepid ones were only fifty feet away. Blake could speak fluent Russian and he bellowed out for them to go back inside. They didn’t, but they didn’t advance any further. It was a temporary stalemate, but Milton knew that eventually their curiosity would win out. There was also the question of footage of the raid finding its way online; he could see the glow of several smartphones held aloft to record the action. It would be on YouTube before they had crossed the town limits.

They carried Pope onwards. “He won’t be able to travel on the snowmobiles,” Milton said.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Spenser said.

“What do you mean?”

Callan released his grip on Pope and stepped away. Milton had to bear the weight alone.

Callan raised his handgun and aimed it at Milton’s head. “On your knees,” he said.

Milton looked at Callan and then at the others. None of them looked surprised. Hammond and Spenser had stepped back a little, their hands resting on their automatic weapons, standing ready to provide support should it be necessary. Blake and Underwood had one eye on the crowd outside the wrecked gate and another on Milton. There was his confirmation, then: they were all in on it. It had always been part of the plan. Control was going to call his bluff after all. Bravo.

“Get it over with,” Spenser said to Callan. “You wanted to do it, so do it.”

“Callan.” It was Pope; his voice was quiet and hoarse. Milton turned to look and saw that he had managed to raise his bruised face. “What are you doing?”

“Control’s orders,” Callan said, his gun arm unwavering. He was only six feet from Milton; it would have been impossible for an amateur to miss from that range, and Callan was not an amateur.

“What orders?”

“He needs to be gone.”

“Take him into custody. You don’t need to shoot him.”

“Be quiet,” Spenser snapped.

Underwood approached from behind and drove his boot into the back of Milton’s knees. His legs folded and he fell forward, bracing with his left arm. Pope fell down with him, Milton’s looped right arm preventing him from falling face first into the snow.

Milton felt calm. He had faced the prospect of death for most of his adult life and he was accustomed to it. It was a possibility that he had accepted; the long-term prognosis for agents working for Control was not good. Milton did not know the average, but he did know that plenty of men and women had been killed in duty in the time he had been in the Group. He had managed to avoid the same fate thanks to a combination of careful planning, decisive execution and good fortune, but that was never going to work forever. Luck always ran out. And, as he knelt there in the snow and the muck, he realised that he was tired of running. Control would never stop. He was relentless. Maybe it was better to just accept the inevitable.

“It’s alright,” he said. “Do what you have to do.”

He closed his eyes. The snow had quickly chilled the muscles in his calves and thighs and it was was working up his spine. He breathed in and out and thought about the last six months: the long trek through South America, the time he had spent in San Francisco. Saving Caterina Morena. Meeting Eva. He had helped people. His account was far from being settled. It was still soaked in the blood that he had spilled, but he had started to make recompense. It was not his fault that he had not been able to do more. He had simply run out of time.

“Callan…” Pope was protesting weakly.

“It has to be done.”

“Of course it doesn’t.” The anger put a little of the steel that Milton remembered back into his voice.

“Enough, Pope,” Spenser spat.

Milton opened his eyes. Callan had taken a step away from him: pitilessly professional, sizing up the shot.

Pope was on his hands and knees, struggling to push himself upright. Spenser intercepted him and kicked his arms away. “You too, I’m afraid. Control doubts your loyalty. And you’ve already seen too much.”

Milton saw the satisfaction in Callan’s handsome, cruel face as he racked the slide to cock the hammer, chambering the top round in the magazine. He had seen it before, in a church hall in the East End of London. Callan was a killer, pure and simple. Each of Milton’s kills had scoured away a little more of the humanity that was left in his soul. Each had been a cause of the most exquisite regret, especially latterly, but Callan was different: he found pleasure every time he pulled the trigger or used his knife or his garrotte. He took pleasure in his job. In that sense, he was the perfect agent. No wonder he was Control’s favourite new creature. He would go far.

Callan straightened his arm and aimed at Milton’s head.

He knew with certainty that there would be no successful appeal to his better nature.

He closed his eyes again and waited.

He heard the crunch of snow.

The shot didn’t come.

Milton paused, holding his breath, wondering why he could still feel the cold working its way up between his shoulder blades, feel the rough texture on the inside of his gloves, the cold breath of winter on the patches of bare skin around his eyes and mouth.

He opened his eyes.

Callan wasn’t there any more.

He rubbed the snow from his eyes and looked. It looked as if a patch of the deep white drift at the side of the drive had detached and risen up. Snow and ice fell away, revealing the figure of a woman dressed in a makeshift ghillie suit. She was twenty feet away. He saw a parka with a mesh across the opening and shaggy threads sown across it in horizontal lines to break up its outline, similarly adorned waterproof trousers and chunky boots. Her face was visible within the loop of the fur trimmed hood.

Beatrix Rose.

She had two throwing knives, one in each hand.

Callan had fallen backwards and now he was facing straight up. Her first knife was buried in his throat. The knife was made of a single piece of steel. His carotid artery was severed and his still beating heart spent its terminal beats spraying aortal red blood across the dirty snow.

Milton’s head snapped around just as Beatrix flicked out her right arm and sent her second knife on its way.

Blake’s padded jacket seemed to absorb the knife, the blade disappearing into his gut, the impact and the surprise sending him staggering backwards, his hands clutching at the grip.

Spenser got a shot off but the bullet went wide, ricocheting off the wall of the dacha.

Milton crawled across the gritty snow, pressed right down into it, until he reached Callan’s body. He still had his Sig in his hand. Milton took it.

Hammond raised her rifle and fired an unaimed spray towards Beatrix. The bullets peppered the trees and the ground behind her, a dozen little explosions of snow jagging backwards. Beatrix ducked behind a tree, out of sight.

Hammond wasn’t looking at Milton. He shot her in the right temple, her head jerking hard to the left as she fell to the ground.

Underwood saw him shoot and brought up his rifle but Milton was quicker with the Sig and put two shots into his gut.

Spenser was last man standing. He turned and started to run but Beatrix's left arm flicked out again and her third knife caught him in the thigh. His leg went out from beneath him and he collapsed sideways into a drift of snow. He scrabbled around so that he was facing back towards them.

Milton aimed at him with the pistol. “Drop it!”

He flung his weapon aside and raised his hands. “Don’t shoot,” he called out.

Beatrix came out from behind the tree and stalked through the drift towards him.

“On your knees,” Milton yelled back. “Hands on your head.”

“My leg,” he said. “I can’t… my leg…”

It was moot: Milton might have been clement but Beatrix was not so inclined. She reached down to the bandolier that was hidden beneath the ragged strands of the ghillie suit, a leather strap that stretched diagonally across her chest, with half a dozen sheathes spaced across it, and took out another knife. She knelt down in the snow and spoke to him quietly; Milton couldn’t make the words out. He protested. She ignored him, stepped around, slid the fingers of her left hand into his hair and yanked back, exposing his neck. She drew the knife across his larynx, opening his throat, the razor-sharp blade severing his trachea. His fingers clutched at the gruesome rent, helplessly trying to close it even as it gaped open and closed with the frantic up and down of his head. His hands slicked red, his body toppled backwards, hinging at the waist, his torso thudding back into the drift, the abundant blood drenching the snow a bright crimson.

Jesus, Milton thought.

“Is that it?” she called out.

He hurried back to Pope and helped him up. “Are you alright?”

“Who’s that?”

Beatrix was over Spenser’s body. She wiped the bloodied blade on his jacket and slid it back into its sheath.

“You don’t know her,” Milton said.

“Who?”

“Her name is Beatrix Rose. She used to be Number One.”

Chapter Forty-Four

Milton hauled Pope into the back of the Tiger. It was an All Terrain Armoured Transport, much like an American Hummer. The benches behind the driver’s and passenger’s seats had been cleared from the interior and Milton pulled Pope all the way inside, reaching back to close the rear door. Beatrix had climbed into the front and turned over the big turbocharged diesel. The locals were up at the gate and the blue and red lights of a police car flashed against the sides of the buildings down the hill.

They had to get away.

“Go, go, go,” he shouted.

The Tiger lurched forwards, the tyres slipping until they found purchase and then slinging them ahead. Beatrix aimed down the hill that led away from the dacha, hitting the brakes at the bottom and swinging them around to the left and the road that would lead to Privolzhsk.

The police car came around the corner and followed after them. It was faster and, provided the road stayed clear up ahead, it would very quickly overhaul them. Milton held onto the side as he glanced back through the windows: it was a hundred feet behind them and closing fast.

“Milton!” Beatrix yelled. “You need to do something about that car.”

Milton unlocked the rear doors and kicked them open. The blue and white painted car was fifty yards behind them now, close enough for Milton to see the driver and his passenger. He waited until they had passed onto a smooth section of road and, fixing his left hand around a stanchion, aimed his Sig with his right. The first shot struck the ground three feet in front of the car, throwing up a small cloud of grit and ice. Milton had not intended to hit the car, just warn the driver, but it did not have the desired effect: the passenger leant out and fired three shots with his own semi-automatic. The third caught the nearside mirror, shattering it.

Thirty feet.

Fair enough.

Milton extended his arm and aimed again, absorbing the recoil in his shoulder for a smoother shot. The bullet found its mark, slicing into the front-right tyre and shredding it so that it flapped off the wheel. The car swerved out of control, the driver braking hard and bleeding off most of the speed before the car spun across a sheet of ice and thumped into a deep drift that had been ploughed to the side of the road.

“Put your foot down.”

Milton grabbed hold of Pope’s jacket to hold him in place as the Tiger bumped and bounced over the uneven road, ploughing through the fresh drifts that had not yet been cleared.

“How far is it?” Beatrix called back.

“Sixteen clicks,” Milton reported.

“So say thirty minutes.”

“Come on, Beatrix, we’ve got no time. Pope needs medivac now. We need to be faster.”

Beatrix clunked the Tiger into fifth gear. She stamped on the accelerator and they lurched forwards.

“Alright,” she said. “Let’s say twenty.”

Milton switched radio frequencies and brought the mic up so that it was pressed against his throat again. “Any station, any station. This is Blackjack Actual in the clear. Radio check in the blind, over.”

There was a moment of silence, adorned by static, and then an accented Russian voice replied: “This is Overlord. We have you five-by-five. Phase line Echo secure. State your position, over.”

Milton looked out of the window and did his best to guess. “Two clicks south of Plyos. Heading for exfil point. ETA twenty minutes, over.”

Milton could hear the sound of a big engine in the background. The speaker had to raise his voice to be heard. “Acknowledged, Blackjack. What is the sit-rep in Plyos?”

“Success.”

“The target?”

“Affirmative, Overlord.”

“Acknowledged, Blackjack. Make your way to exfil. We’ll be there. Over and out.”

Pope coughed, a tearing sound that came from deep inside his lungs. He reached up for Milton’s elbow. “John,” he said, his voice a ragged whisper.

Milton leant down nearer to his face. “Don’t talk. We’re getting you out.”

Chapter Forty-Five

The Kamov Ka-60 had been airborne for some time already and it had been forced to circle the exfil point for twenty minutes. Beatrix slalomed the Tiger through the deep snow at the side of the road, the Tiger decelerating sharply, and cut across the wide field to the clear space that Milton had indicated. He opened the door and dropped down, taking four chemlights from his Bergen, cracking them alight and tossing them out to form the corners of a wide rectangle. The chopper’s engines roared as it descended, the pilot flaring the nose and the vicious wash kicking up thick eddies of snow, blowing away the fresh fall to reveal the icy permafrost beneath.

Milton and Beatrix went around to the back of the Tiger and helped Pope down. They draped his arms across their shoulders and stumbled towards the Kamov, the toes of their boots catching against the ridges of snow and his carving long troughs behind him. There were two crew onboard, and the second man went back into the cabin and opened the door for them. Beatrix reached the chopper and vaulted up. Milton helped Pope inside, boosted him forwards and Beatrix hauled him the rest of the way. Milton vaulted up himself.

“Where are rest of your team?” the crewman called out.

“Didn’t make it,” Milton said.

Milton was no pilot, but even he could tell from the anxiety in the open cockpit that the crew were concerned that they would have enough juice to make it back to Kubinka.

Nothing he could do about that. He spun his finger in the air, the signal to take off. “Let’s get out of here.”

He sat with his back against the fuselage. He took off his helmet and scrubbed his fingers through his sweaty, bedraggled hair, then swiped the sweat from his eyes. Pope was shivering and Beatrix found a blanket and draped it over him. The crewman shouted back that there was hot coffee in the vacuum flask in the pack fastened to one of the chairs. She took it, poured out a cup and held it to Pope’s lips. He sipped at it. Beatrix looked over at Milton with concern. He was very sick and very weak.

He turned to the pilot. “How long to Kubinka?”

“Forty-five minutes,” the man shouted back.

“Is that at top speed?”

“Top speed, maybe thirty-five, but fuel…”

“Do it,” Milton said. “He needs a doctor.”

The lights of Kubinka airfield blinked brightly in the snowy night. The runway was delineated by converging horizontal lines and then, beyond, red and green vertical stripes that marked the runway edges and the centreline. They could see the Moscow suburbs away to starboard, the urban glow shining through the darkness like a golden mantle. The pilot radioed that they were on final approach, swung the Kamov into a sharp turn and then bled the height away. They were coming down on the runway itself, aiming for the darkened outline of the Hercules, its white landing lights refracting brightly against the wetness of the cleared asphalt beneath it. The rotors eddied the stubborn flakes as their ride touched down and Milton was the first to disembark, bent low to manage the wash as he crossed to the RAF Flight Lieutenant who had flown the Hercules that had brought them in. He was standing with three Russian airmen. The Hercules was twenty feet away, the four big engines already rumbling and the propellors turning slowly.

“Welcome back, sir. Everything alright?”

“Everything is fine, Lieutenant.”

“Where are the others?”

“They’re not coming back.”

“What happened?”

“They were ready for us,” he lied. “Heavy resistance. They others didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“We need a stretcher. Captain Pope is very weak.”

“Already sorted that out, sir. We’ll bring it across.”

“And the doctor?”

“Over there, sir.” The Flight Lieutenant pointed to the medic who was running towards the Kamov.

“Are you ready to go?”

“We’ll be on our way in five minutes. Don’t see much point in hanging around, do you?

“No, Lieutenant, I do not.”

“Get aboard then, sir. I’ll make sure our man gets on in one piece.”

Milton paused. “Got a smoke?”

He didn’t but one of the Russians nodded that he understood and offered Milton a packet of Java Zolotaya. Milton thanked him, took one and tried to hand the packet back; the Russian held up his hand and shook his head. Milton thanked him again. He put the cigarette to his lips and lit it.

The Flight Lieutenant led the Russians to the Kamov. Beatrix stepped down and walked over to him.

“Thanks,” Milton said.

“I thought I was going to be late. The car Mamotchka gave me broke down in the middle of nowhere. I hitched the rest of the way.”

“You hitched?”

“Truck driver took pity on me. Probably thought his luck was in.”

She cocked an eyebrow in amusement. It wasn’t difficult to imagine how quickly he would have been disabused of that idea.

They walked across the airstrip to the Hercules. The ramp was already lowered and they climbed aboard, knocking their boots against the hydraulic struts to clear the compacted snow away.

Milton watched her. “You know Spenser was surrendering, don’t you?”

“I know,” she said.

“I’m not being critical.”

“I wouldn’t care if you were,” she said. “He had it coming to him.”

“You had history?”

“We did.”

“He was one of the ones Control sent after you?”

“He took my daughter,” she said absently. “I’d kill him twice if I could.”

“The score is settled, then.”

“With him, yes. Just five more now.”

Milton looked at her: there was steel in her face and fire in her eyes. He didn’t press.

He finished his cigarette and threw it onto the runway outside. The Russians had Pope on a stretcher and they were bringing him across to them.

He took out the packet. “These taste like shit. You want one?”

“Go on, then.”

He handed one to her and then gave her his lighter. She lit it, holding it between her lips as she took the pistol from its holster, secured the manual safety and then ejected the magazine. The action was completed easily and smoothly, with minimum effort. He knew she would have been able to strip and reassemble the gun when she was blindfolded, too. He was just the same. He remembered what she had been like when she had selected him from the other applicants who had been competing to join the Group: fierce and intimidating, and none of that edge had been dulled in her lost years. Her anger had become a crucible and she had submerged himself in that slow-burning, pitiless flame, until the emotion had been smelted out of her.

Just five more now.

He knew the identity of one of those five.

There was nothing that could have persuaded Milton to swap places with him.