Putin's Gambit

30

Derek Walsh had experienced grenade blasts in training and once in real-life combat. The concussion of the explosion tended to travel along the path of least resistance. Doorways were a particularly bad place to stand. But having a solid wall and a bed between him and the blast made it nothing more than a very, very loud noise. The floor shook, and he could see the flash and felt the rush of heat, but he was not injured or even particularly dazed.

But he did recognize that the blast might have killed FBI agents and, more likely, the woman he thought was his girlfriend. Now smoke started to drift through the apartment, and he could smell something burning. He looked over his shoulder at the window he planned to jump through in just a second. It was his hope there was a fire escape, but he was prepared to make a leap to the ground rather than stay and face whoever was left after the grenade blast.

Walsh stood from behind the bed, careful to keep the gun pointed at the ground. As soon as he stood, he saw that one of the FBI agents had been blown through the outer room and into the bedroom and lay moaning on the ground. His ballistic helmet was twisted at an odd angle, and his body sprawled on the hard wooden floor.

Walsh turned and looked at the window but knew he couldn’t leave yet. He stuck the gun in his waistband and bounded to the wounded man. He focused on the man because he knew he didn’t want to see what had happened to Alena in the other room. His combat first aid training came right back to him, and he removed the man’s helmet and saw that he was about the same age as Walsh, with hair longer than the typical military recruit’s. On the left side of his neck a piece of shrapnel or perhaps the frame of the door had left a four-inch gaping wound; blood was pooling on the ground beneath his head.

Walsh looked around for an instant, then grabbed the pillow off the bed and slipped off the cover. He folded it three times and then put direct pressure on the man’s neck. It was then that he looked up and noticed two others lying on the ground in the other room. They both seemed semiconscious and were moaning, but they were both moving slightly as well. That was a good sign.

Walsh called out to them, “Hang on, fellas. Help is coming.” In fact, he had no idea who was coming. The Russian with the scar could step around the corner and start shooting at any moment. He blocked it all out of his mind while he concentrated on this man’s injuries.

The FBI agent tried to speak, but Walsh told him to keep quiet and still. He could feel the man’s heartbeat. It was starting to fade, and that caused Walsh to panic a little. Then he heard voices in the main room. First, it was a man’s deep voice that said, “Holy shit.” Then a woman’s voice called out, “Doug?” Then the woman said to someone, “Check the kitchen. Our guys are in the other room.”

Walsh could hear a commotion and footsteps as he continued to put pressure on the young FBI agent’s wound. Then a head popped around the corner from the main room. Walsh glanced up and immediately recognized Tonya Stratford.

She said, “What the—”

Walsh barked an order. “Get over here. I need help, quick.” The FBI agent rushed toward him as someone else came through the door to help the other two injured men. Walsh edged to the side and said, “I need you to hold this tight to his throat. Is someone calling for fire rescue?”

As she moved to get into position to hold the blood-soaked pillowcase to the wound, Agent Stratford said, “We called. Paramedics should be here in a few minutes.”

Now Walsh changed position and loosened the man’s ballistic vest carrier to check for other wounds. He lifted the man’s shirt and found one gash in his abdomen that wasn’t serious. The stress of the event was starting to catch up to him, and the adrenaline was dumping from his system. He said, “How’d you find me?”

Agent Stratford concentrated on stopping the bleeding but said, “I had surveillance on the apartment after you gave me Blattkoff’s name. When you didn’t show at Times Square, I got a call you were seen being escorted in here, and we made a quick plan.”

Just then another head popped around the corner, surveying the injured man. Then he noticed Walsh and said, “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe the shit you cause, smart guy.”

Walsh looked up to see agent Stratford’s partner, Frank Martin, raise his service pistol and aim it at him. The guy apparently still held a grudge for Walsh giving him the slip on Wall Street.

Fannie was exhausted by the time she made it to her apartment in Stuttgart. It was the middle of the night, and the streets were absolutely silent. But she had been on the phone constantly since she’d landed, and there were already three men waiting for her when she arrived. These were trusted men who’d helped her with several major projects and never looked down on her for being a woman.

Almost as soon as she walked in the door and got settled at her kitchen table with the others, one of the men said, “Where’s Amir?”

“Helping the Russians.”

“When will he be back?”

“Later. You know how the Iranians are. They want to make sure they back every possible player in a conflict so they always look like they’re winning. We see it in Syria. We even see it with the Islamic State. They don’t want to be left out completely. So Amir will help the Russians until it’s time to not help the Russians anymore.” That seemed to satisfy everyone. She looked across at a middle-aged, heavyset bald man. “Were you able to put together what I asked for?”

The man bobbed his head and said, “I have a very powerful C-4 package that will fit under virtually any vehicle with magnets. The combination of the explosive and the fuel in the car will cause the blast radius to spread thirty meters in every direction.” The man was so excited he looked like he was talking about his children doing well in school. “The blast will break windows up to five hundred meters away. The Americans on the base will think a nuclear weapon went off.”

“And you won’t have a problem being in position to see when he enters the gate with the vehicle?”

“I have already scouted it. It won’t be a problem with a cell phone detonator already attached to the device. Just give me a little notice so I’m not hanging out too long in front of the base.”

Fannie had to smile thinking about the carnage the blast would cause and the confusion it would sow among the American ranks. She hoped she was able to pull it off before they had word that the Russians were crossing the border into Estonia. It could delay action for several hours at the base.

Thinking about all of this made her worried about Anton Severov. He’d be facing the Americans in a few hours, a day at most. This was the confrontation that the world had been waiting to see for the past sixty years.

Walsh froze at the sight of the pistol pointed at him and instinctively raised his hands. When he stood, he stepped away from the FBI agent with the gun and past Tonya Stratford, who was still tending to the wounded man.

Agent Stratford said, “Hold on, Frank, he was helping our wounded.”

“He’s a fugitive. I’ve never lost a prisoner, and this asshole is not going to be the first.”

Walsh was going to answer but saw the rage in the man’s face.

The burly FBI man said, “I’m done having him make fools of us.”

Walsh didn’t wait to see where this was going. He continued to back away with his hands up, then threw himself into the window and felt the glass and wooden frame break away behind him. He tumbled out of the window wondering how far he would fall, then realized he had landed on a fire escape. The landing jarred his head and clanged in his ears. He didn’t even wait for his head to clear as he rolled and found the elevated ladder, which dropped immediately to the ground with him at the end. The jolting stop knocked him onto a small patch of grass, but he wasted no time springing to his feet and racing toward the sidewalk. He heard a shot from the window but didn’t turn around. As he sprinted down the sidewalk, he saw two Chevy Impalas parked at odd angles in the street. He knew who the cars belonged to. He slipped out his pistol and put a bullet in the front passenger tire of each car.

He made a hard right turn and found himself once again running for his life.