Quantum

66

After pulling Avvakum free of the makeshift barricade in her office and placing her under the protection of the Alphas, Kilkenny and Fydorov worked their way down to the security office on the first floor. Though they still heard occasional bursts of gunfire, the assault on Orlov’s building was nearly over.

Several corpses lay where they had fallen in the corridors. Visual evidence of the intense battle for the first floor — spent shell casings, bullet-scarred walls, and scorch marks left by flash-bang stun grenades — was strewn everywhere, and the air was heavy with the acrid scent of recent gunfire. Corpsmen were carefully removing the wounded Alphas, and a triage had been established at the building’s loading dock. Gear removed from the injured Alphas lay in a pile by the wall.

‘Here, put this on,’ Fydorov said as he handed Kilkenny a black, Kevlar-plated vest from the pile. ‘This way my people won’t think you’re one of Orlov’s men and fuck with you.’

‘Will do,’ Kilkenny said as he carefully worked the vest around his injured shoulder.

They cut through the loading dock and made their way to the security office. Along the concrete wall, Kilkenny saw a flush stainless-steel door and frame. The door had no visible hardware except for a keypad mounted on the wall to the left.

‘That a vault?’ he asked.

Fydorov threw a quick glance at the door. ‘Could be. We’ll open it up later.’

Kilkenny and Fydorov passed the armory and entered the monitoring room. Banks of small, black-and-white closed-circuit video screens filled the wall above the operator console. Rows of numbered buttons lined the console, each tied to a remote camera, in addition to the joysticks and sliders that allowed the operator to pan, tilt, and zoom the cameras. Kilkenny studied the monitors — black figures passed across a few of them, but the rest showed empty corridors and offices.

An Alpha entered the security suite, walked up to Fydorov, and said something in Russian. Fydorov nodded and turned to Kilkenny.

‘At the moment, I am needed elsewhere. Stay here, I’ll be back in a minute.’

After Fydorov left with the Alpha, Kilkenny started punching the numbered buttons and cycling through a series of preprogrammed views. The first set of buttons covered the building’s exterior, rooftop, and entry points. He left those on, as they were the only way in and out of the building, then began looking at the interior camera views on the remaining monitors.

He visually swept through the building — section by section, floor by floor — but Orlov was nowhere to be seen.

‘He’s got to be hiding somewhere,’ Kilkenny mused as he punched up the next camera series.

Four monitors flickered as linked cameras relayed images of their remote locations. The eerily lit images on two of the screens showed a long, narrow concrete passageway.

The fourth monitor showed a bright flash of light approaching the camera from a distance. The camera shuddered as the bright light quickly passed underneath, followed by a strobelike pattern of light and dark.

‘That looks like a subway.’ Kilkenny studied the image intently.

He turned his attention back to the previous series. Using the controls, he maneuvered the cameras and swept the length of the passageway. Zooming deep with the second camera, he detected some movement. A figure came into focus — Orlov, with a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other.

‘Gotcha! But how’d you get in there?’

Kilkenny looked at the first monitor, which showed a corridor. He swiveled the camera and found that it provided an excellent view of the vault door just outside the security suite.

He ran to the loading dock, but Fydorov was nowhere in sight.

‘Shit!’

Kilkenny searched through the pile of vests and assault gear until he found a coil of ribbon charge and a detonator, then ran back to the vault door. Carefully, he uncoiled the white ribbon of explosive and taped it over the seam between the door and frame where the locking bolts should be. He then set the detonator, activated it, and ran for cover in the security office.

The five-second detonator fired, igniting the linear explosive charge. The blast rang loudly off the concrete walls, and a cloud of smoke filled the short corridor. The blast compressed the edge of the door as it peeled the thick steel skin back and away from the rigid metal core.

Kilkenny found the door hanging ajar, its torn metal edges still hot. As he nudged it open, one of the actuated bolts fell out of the jamb and clattered onto the floor.

Beyond the door he found a narrow flight of stairs. Kilkenny drew out the Glock and carefully began his descent into the darkness below.

Orlov was three-quarters of the way down the hundredmeter tunnel when the eerie, subterranean silence was replaced with an ear-splitting roar of concussive energy. The blast knocked him to his knees, and he dropped both his flashlight and his pistol. His ears rang as if someone were boring through them with a drill into his skull.

He shook off the dizziness and groped around on the floor. He found the flashlight first and tested the switch. Nothing. He blindly twisted the screw fittings as tight as they would go and tried the switch again — a dim light shone. He aimed the faint beam on the floor and searched for the pistol.

Kilkenny reached the bottom of the stairs and, other than the glow of light from the doorway above, was enveloped in darkness. In the distance, about seventy-five meters ahead of him, he saw a faint illumination.

‘Orlov!’ he shouted, his voice echoing down the long concrete passageway.

The summons thundered around Orlov, breaking through the high-pitched ringing in his ears. He glanced back down the tunnel but saw nothing in the darkness.

‘Orlov!’ the voice boomed out again, getting closer. ‘Surrender!’

Orlov reached down, picked up the Glock, and fired.

In the darkness, Kilkenny moved carefully in a crouch along the tunnel wall as Orlov fired recklessly down the darkened passageway. He focused his attention on the dark space between the dim light and the flashes of Orlov’s pistol fire. His body ached, both arms throbbing.

‘Fuck this!’ Kilkenny cursed, and fired his weapon.

Orlov shrieked as the bullet ripped through the thin metal housing of the flashlight, shredding the device in his hands. Kilkenny then broke into an open sprint, screaming like a madman. Muzzle flashes from Kilkenny’s Glock illuminated the tunnel like a strobe as he closed in on Orlov.

Orlov cowered under the sonic assault of gunfire and Kilkenny’s deafening kiai, lying on the floor as bullets flew over his head. Terror gripped him, and then he felt a warm, liquid sensation around his abdomen and thighs.

Kilkenny dove the last two meters headfirst, landing squarely on Orlov’s back. The two men slid across the concrete floor before the friction of the rough surface brought them to a stop.

‘Move, and I’ll kill you,’ Kilkenny warned, more a promise than a threat.

He propped himself up, grinding his knee into the center of Orlov’s back. He then pulled the pistol from Orlov’s quivering grip and tossed it down the tunnel.

‘I have money,’ Orlov said feebly.

‘What?’

‘Money. I have money, lots of it. I’ll give you ten million dollars to let me go.’

‘How the fuck are you going to get me ten million dollars?’

‘I have accounts, in Switzerland. Personal accounts,’ Orlov rambled nervously. ‘I can wire the money anywhere you like, with a phone call.’

‘You had Swiss accounts.’

‘What?’

Kilkenny placed the barrel of his Glock at the base of Orlov’s skull, then leaned close to the oligarch’s ear.

‘Everything you owned is gone. Your companies. Your investments. Your numbered Swiss accounts. Your real estate. Every fucking thing in your billion-dollar portfolio is gone, and I’m the guy who took it from you. Hell, the only thing I didn’t get is the change in your pockets.’

Kilkenny pressed his pistol deeper into the flesh of Orlov’s neck.

‘You’re going to kill me?’ Orlov shrieked.

‘A coup de grâce would be appropriate, don’t you think, considering what you did to Sandstrom and Paramo and a lot of other people who had the misfortune of coming into contact with a disgusting parasite like you.’

A bright flashlight flooded the tunnel.

‘Kilkenny!’ a voice shouted from the far end.

‘The Alphas are coming, and they seem to want you alive. I guess I’d better finish this now.’

Kilkenny leaned back, the Glock still poised to blow Orlov’s head open.

‘Kilkenny!’ Fydorov shouted, fast approaching — more footsteps behind him. ‘Let us handle Orlov!’

As Kilkenny squeezed back on the trigger, he shifted the barrel of the Glock two inches to the right. A burning flash erupted from the pistol as Kilkenny’s last round ripped through the top of Orlov’s ear, struck the floor, and ricocheted into the black distance of the tunnel.

‘You’re in luck, Orlov. I missed.’

Orlov fainted, and a small pool of blood formed beside his head. Kilkenny stood as Fydorov and two Alphas arrived.

‘Did you kill him?’ Fydorov asked, looking down at the motionless form.

‘Not my style. I’ll let the courts deal with this scumbag. Do you still have gulags over here?’

‘I’m certain an appropriate home can be found for him.’ Fydorov turned to his men. ‘Get him out of here.’

‘I’m glad you figured out where I went,’ Kilkenny said.

‘That little explosion you set off left no doubt. Come on, let’s get your injuries taken care of.’