Price of Duty

TWENTY-EIGHT

Slowly and painfully, Igor Truznyev clawed and fought his way back up out of oblivion. He opened his eyes and then closed them again for a moment, feeling light-headed and utterly disoriented. He tried to move and found it impossible. Where was he? What had happened? Had he been in some kind of accident? Was this a hospital?

But then his memories flooded back. The memories of Kazyanov’s strange invitation. Of climbing into that sedan. And then the sharp sensation of that needle plunging into his thigh. He swallowed in sudden panic. He’d been drugged!

His eyes opened. He took a deep, shuddering breath and regretted it straightaway. It was cold. So cold that the very air seemed full of ice crystals that stabbed and hacked and slashed all the way down his throat and into his straining lungs.

Truznyev stared down at himself. Clad in a threadbare, sweat-soaked shirt and rough, ill-fitting trousers, he was strapped upright on a tiled metal table. Everything else around him was almost completely dark, with only glimmers of light seeping under a heavy steel door set in a dank concrete wall. Beyond the ragged sound of his own labored breathing and the thudding of his heart, there was only silence — an oppressive, all-encompassing silence like that of the grave. Fear crawled down his spine.

This was no hospital.

He had seen places like this before — places where soulless, cold-eyed men tortured other men and women, systematically reducing them to broken, barely human husks emptied of all knowledge and hope. He had been one of those cold-eyed men himself, in his younger days.

Straining futilely against the straps that bound him in place, Truznyev fought to regain control. This is a mistake, he told himself. A terrible mistake. Or maybe, he thought wildly, it was only some horrible nightmare.

And then, with a harsh, rippling crackle of electricity, a spotlight flared on — spearing him in its stark white glare, as though he were a cockroach caught crawling along a kitchen countertop. Squinting painfully against the pitiless, blinding light, he could only blink away tears.

“You are a traitor, Igor Ivanovich Truznyev,” a flat, emotionless voice said, from the shadows behind the light.

All Truznyev could make out of the other man were a pair of highly polished boots. He swallowed and then tried to speak. “That is a lie,” he stammered. “I am no such thing. I—”

“You will be silent,” the voice said brutally. “Your crimes are no longer hidden. They stand revealed for all to see. Last year, at your orders, Ukrainian terrorists murdered numerous loyal Russian officers. Under your direction, these same terrorists committed acts of sabotage designed to drag this country into a war with Poland under false pretenses. Hundreds of our countrymen were killed in this war and thousands more were wounded. Tens of billions of rubles of valuable military hardware — missiles, aircraft, armored vehicles, and artillery — were lost. And then, simply to camouflage your role in luring the Motherland into this disastrous conflict, your agents murdered a Chinese intelligence officer and planted evidence suggesting Beijing’s involvement. You were willing to destroy decades of delicate diplomatic rapprochement — to set us again in enmity against a nuclear-armed neighbor — and for what? Just to try to save your own skin.”

Sweating now, despite the cold, Truznyev shook his head repeatedly, trying desperately to signal his denial of each accusation as it was made. Inwardly he felt mounting despair as the litany of his crimes unfolded, including details, dates, and names known only to a few of those he had covertly manipulated and corrupted — many of whom he had believed were dead, murdered at his own orders. Someone had betrayed him, but who?

“So, yes, you are a traitor, Igor Ivanovich,” the voice said, now sounding disgusted. “A vile, stinking, and evil traitor. A traitor willing to betray his own people for sordid profit and the deluded hope of personal political gain.”

Increasingly terrified, Truznyev retched, tasting the sour, acid taste of bile. “Where is my advocate?” he demanded feebly. “You cannot hold me incommunicado like this. Under the constitution, I have rights! I am entitled to a defense lawyer.”

“You have no such rights, Igor Ivanovich,” the voice said implacably. “Nor are you entitled to counsel. Your trial is concluded. You have been found guilty, and the sentence is death.”

“No! That is not possible!” Truznyev protested shrilly, more afraid than ever. His voice cracked. “This is a farce! I am a former president of the Russian Federation! I am no traitor! I am a loyal servant of the state. I demand to speak to Sergei Tarzarov! Or to President Gryzlov himself!”

With a squealing, grinding sound, a view port slid open on the cell door. There, framed in the narrow opening, Truznyev saw Gennadiy Gryzlov staring in at him with a stern, unblinking expression. His breath caught in his throat. “Mr. President,” he pleaded, reduced to babbling brokenly, almost incoherently, as his terror mounted. “Gennadiy. You are the son of my old friend and comrade Anatoly. Please, I beg you—”

Without speaking, the younger man turned away. The view port slid shut.

“Your appeal has been heard. And denied,” the voice behind the blinding lights said tersely. “By order of the president, your sentence will be carried out without further delay.”

The lights went out.

In the darkness, Truznyev felt a powerful hand grip his arm, followed by the sharp prick of a needle. He began screaming hoarsely, frantically writhing against the straps that bound him to the metal table. He was still screaming when the world fell out from under him and he lost consciousness.

Again, Igor Truznyev swam groggily up out of blackness. His hands and feet were no longer bound. He staggered upright, forcing himself off his knees. Woozily, he spun slowly through a half circle, trying to make sense of his surroundings. What was this place? Branches laden with pine needles brushed past his face. All color seemed to have been leached from the world, leaving only shades of black and white and gray.

He was in a forest, he realized. It was night and he was somewhere deep in a forest choked by snow. An icy wind whipped right through his threadbare prison clothes, stabbing deeply. His feet were numb. His teeth chattered, rattling so hard that he could not keep his mouth closed.

“You have gone far enough, dead man,” a harsh voice said from behind him.

Dazed and barely conscious, Truznyev turned slowly.

The blue-tinted halogen headlights of an automobile flicked on. Silhouetted against their glare, he could make out three men in heavy military overcoats. They cradled assault rifles.

Oh God, no, he thought.

“Make ready!” the voice snapped.

Their assault rifles came up, aiming straight at his chest.

“No! Please! No!” Truznyev screamed, overwhelmed by panic. He dropped to his knees in the snow with his arms spread wide. “Don’t kill me! Not like this!” he begged.

But then, suddenly, an enormous black-and-gray shape lunged out of the forest. It raced into the midst of his would-be executioners in a blur of lethal precision and speed — trailing a whirlwind of snow and splintered branches. In what seemed a single blurred instant of murderously efficient motion, the machine slaughtered them. Bodies went flying in all directions. Bright red blood sprayed across the snow.

Truznyev stayed frozen, his eyes wide in horror.

Towering above the broken corpses of the men it had just butchered, the robot stood motionless for a moment. Then its six-sided head swiveled through an arc, as though it were a wolf sniffing the air for the scent of new prey.

With a soft, hydraulic whine, the huge machine turned in his direction, reaching out with large, articulated metal fingers. “You are Igor Truznyev,” it said in an eerie, inhuman voice. “And I have come for you.”

Terrified out of his wits, Igor Truznyev passed out.

A large opaque dome occupied the center of the cavernous hangar. It looked oddly like one of the inflatable, portable planetariums used to bring astronomy shows to schoolchildren around the world. Power and fiber-optic cables snaked across the cold concrete floor, connecting the dome to an array of monitors and computers. Environmental systems hummed softly. Technicians moved quietly from machine to machine, checking various systems and adjusting controls as needed.

The dome contained a haptic interface module and a series of three-dimensional projectors, all tied into a sophisticated virtual-reality setup. Ordinarily the simulator was used to give prospective CID pilots a taste of what piloting one of the fighting machines was like — without risking damage to one of the hugely expensive robots at the hands of a rookie. Pilot candidates could run through a whole series of mock battle and training scenarios that would look, sound, and even feel real, thanks to the haptic interface.

But now the simulator had been reconfigured for a very different purpose.

Brad McLanahan stood next to Kevin Martindale, watching the Scion techs work in hushed silence. “You really think this scheme of yours is going to work?” he asked skeptically, eyeing the jury-rigged mass of cabling.

Martindale shrugged. “I certainly hope so,” he said. Pointedly, he nodded toward the large digital clock mounted on one wall of the hangar. “Given the time constraints we face, the other means of… persuasion… available to us seemed even less likely to achieve results.”

“Not to mention being even more ethically suspect,” Brad said wryly.

“Indeed,” Martindale agreed, without batting an eyelash. “So let’s pray this succeeds, shall we? Because I am prepared to do whatever is necessary to get the information we need.”

Brad nodded slowly. Not for the first time, he decided that Martindale was a very dangerous man. For now, the head of Scion was on the side of the angels, but the ease with which he contemplated cutting moral and ethical corners in pursuit of his goals was daunting. What was that line from Nietzsche he’d read in some philosophy class? Something about staring into the abyss too long and one day finding the abyss staring back at you? Well, Kevin Martindale had been dancing on the edge of the abyss for a long, long time.

“Excuse me, Mr. Martindale,” one of the technicians said, coming up to report. “The subject has just lost conscious, as expected. We’ve started sedating him again.”

“Very well,” Martindale said. He looked up at the clock again. “Initiate the final phase of Program Lubyanka.” Seeing the wry look on Brad’s face, he murmured. “It seemed an appropriate title.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Brad replied tightly. “I’ll go make sure Captain Schofield’s guys are set. And then I’ll suit up.”

He turned and walked away, wondering if a day was going to come when he and Martindale crossed swords. For both their sakes, he hoped not.

Igor Truznyev woke up again, this time feeling more rested and far more in control of his faculties. He felt warm, almost comfortable. That seemed… wrong, somehow.

He opened his eyes. Wrapped in blankets, he was strapped loosely to a stretcher. An IV tube was attached to his arm. A uniformed medic with a Red Cross armband finished checking his pulse, gave him a quick thumbs-up sign, and then sat back.

Truznyev lifted his head slightly, studying his surroundings. From the noise and vibration, he judged that he was in the troop compartment of some kind of military aircraft. Grim-faced men and women in snow camouflage uniforms sat in fold-down seats that ran down the length of the cabin. Both their uniforms and their weapons were unfamiliar.

His eyes widened when he saw the large, spindly-limbed combat machine squatting near the aircraft’s sealed rear ramp door. Memories of the slaughter he’d witnessed suddenly crowded his mind. He started to shiver. He was in the hands of the Poles and their Iron Wolf mercenaries.

With a jolt, the aircraft touched down, bounced slightly, and then settled firmly. The roar of its engines diminished fast, spooling down into silence. At the same time, the ramp door whined open, revealing a barren stretch of tarmac and snow-dusted trees in the distance.

With that same startling grace he’d witnessed earlier, the tall robot unfolded itself and strode away with amazing speed. The snow-camouflaged troops followed it out, assembling in squads on the tarmac and then marching away at the double.

Once the ramp was clear, a medical team darted inside, lifted up his stretcher, and carried him outside. As they left, Truznyev got a better look at the aircraft, a large tilt-rotor emblazoned with a metal gray, red-eyed robotic wolf’s head.

The medics set his stretcher down on the tarmac.

A well-dressed man with long gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard sauntered over and looked down at him. “Welcome to Poland, President Truznyev,” the man said smoothly.

Truznyev recognized Kevin Martindale at once. Intelligence reports, rumors, and pure speculation about the former American president and his private military corporation occupied substantial space in official Russian intelligence databases and in those belonging to his own private consulting group.

He swallowed hard. “You—” he said hesitantly, not sure quite how to proceed.

“Extracted you from a rather nasty situation of your own making?” Martindale finished for him.

Wordlessly, Truznyev nodded, feeling humiliated. First, Gryzlov and now this American. How many others had uncovered the secrets he thought so carefully buried?

“Yes, we did,” Martindale said flatly. “And at considerable risk and expense to ourselves.” Coldly, he stared down at the Russian. “You know who I am, Igor,” he said. “So you know that I am not a particularly charitable or forgiving man.”

Again, Truznyev nodded.

“Good. Because you put yourself into this mess. And now you’re going to have to buy your way out of it,” Martindale told him. His expression hardened. “And if you can’t, my people will dump you back across the border so that Gryzlov’s killers can finish the work we so rudely interrupted. Is that clear?” Truznyev winced. He felt the color drain from his face. “Good,” Martindale said, sounding satisfied, not waiting for a verbal response. He signaled the waiting medic. They lifted Truznyev’s stretcher again and moved toward a waiting ambulance.

Martindale kept pace. “You’re going to a pleasant, comfortable, and extremely well-guarded military hospital, Igor,” he said with a slight smile. “And on the way, you and I are going to have a really thorough and very detailed chat about the cyberwar complex you folks call Perun’s Aerie.”