Rasputin's Shadow

49

Koschey checked outside the warehouse, made sure all was quiet, and locked the door.

He wandered across the large space, headed for the small office, deep in thought.

He knew he’d almost lost it all during his excursion to recover the van, but the thought didn’t bother him. It was a risk he always carried. Especially on assignments like this one, where uncertainties couldn’t be avoided and he had to make quick decisions without the benefit of advance planning. But that was part of what had made his legend: the fact that he could improvise better than most, and that somehow, he always came out ahead. This night had been a major test of that skill, a test he’d come through again with no more than a bruise or two. He’d learn from it, add it to the large repertoire of experience he’d inevitably draw from at some point in the future. More important, he now had everything he needed: Sokolov-Shislenko-and the van.

He checked on his captive. Sokolov was still firmly cuffed in place and asleep, the latter courtesy of the SP-117. Koschey knew the scientist wouldn’t be coming out of it soon, although it was a process he could accelerate with some smelling salts. But he didn’t need to do it just yet. While he didn’t have too much time to waste, not with the kind of resources that must have been allocated to tracking him down, he had to get himself a new ride before waking up Sokolov.

He didn’t have his SUV anymore, and the van was certainly too hot to use again.

He also needed to think. He already had a plan, one he’d started formulating as soon as he understood what he was dealing with, one that became much more immediate and irresistible after hearing Sokolov’s revelations.

He needed to refine it, put it through the wringer, make sure it stacked up.

The event was soon-perhaps too soon. It had stood out from the list of major American events that the Center always kept track of. High-target-value events. But even if it was too soon-only a day away-it was the perfect venue for what he was planning. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. Besides, he couldn’t hang around much longer. He was on enemy territory, and he needed to act quickly, before the net tightened in around him.

He needed to contact the key players-the backers, and the patsies-all of whom he knew, all of whom he also knew had the appetite and the means for what he envisaged. Then he’d put the plan in motion and he’d rock the world in a way that would never be forgotten, before disappearing to a comfortable outpost while waiting for the next opportunity to strike, the next occasion for him to flex his newfound muscle and lift himself even further up the podium of history.

The timing couldn’t have been better. Along with everyone back in the corridors of power in Moscow, he’d also been watching the events shaking the Arab world. In country after country, people were rising against their oppressors. Dictators were being toppled, their ill-gotten gains and gilded palaces confiscated before they and their cronies were dragged into court or strung up from lampposts. A new mind-set was gripping the oppressed corners of the planet, a desperate and angry yearning for freedom and retribution, and an accompanying unease was rippling through the Kremlin. The protesters in Moscow were getting louder and more ballsy, and there was a deep-set concern that the “Arab Spring” could spread to the Motherland. If that happened, it would pull the rug out from under those in power. It would also deprive Koschey of any chance he might have at carving out the slice of notoriety and wealth he now felt he deserved, the one he felt he was owed for all his years of service.

Well, he thought, maybe his time had come. Maybe he’d start carving it out right here, in America, and not in some oilfield or gas field in Siberia.

The thought of striking at America only made the prospect sweeter. For despite it all, Koschey was still, deep down, a patriot. A proud, staunch patriot. And the Americans, he felt, were too smug about their success. Yes, the collapse of his Motherland’s old political ideology was inevitable. Yes, his superiors had proven to be greedier and more predatory than the worst of Wall Street’s corporate raiders. But the Americans needed to be humbled. They were the only superpower left, and the way they wielded their power, with such arrogance and impunity, really grated on Koschey. They needed to be brought down, and Koschey relished the potential infamy that would be bestowed on the one who would do it.

With that prospect in mind, he took a corner of the office and lay down on the concrete floor.

After running through his plan one more time in his head, he finally allowed himself to drift into sleep.

STILL CROUCHED IN THE back of the van, Shin barely dared to breathe.

He was frozen in place, huddled against the partition, in the corner behind the passenger seats, a bundle of shivering sweat, listening intently while trying to make himself as small as possible.

He wasn’t sure what had happened out at Prospect Park. He was still in the back when they’d stopped, and out of sheer terror, he’d decided to stay there. Through the small window in the cabin door, he’d glimpsed Ae-Cha and the Russian standing across the lot from them, seen him shoot her in the foot, witnessed Bon going down-then he’d hit the cabin floor and stayed there for cover. Before he knew it, there had been a frenzied firefight, then the van was moving again-not just moving, but charging, plowing into something and bouncing over it, taking a series of sharp turns that had him hanging on to the metal box for dear life before the van finally settled into a reasonable pace.

He’d risked a very angled peek through the window, barely creeping out of his hiding place, just to see who was driving. And he’d almost had a heart attack when he’d glimpsed the Russian who’d shot Ae-Cha and Bon and probably Jonny, too, in the driver’s seat.

He’d slunk back into his corner and curled up there, trembling and sweating like he had typhoid, his mind locked in silent panic. He’d debated flinging the back doors open and jumping out while the van was in motion, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d remained in that pathetic state until, some time later, the van had slowed down and pulled in somewhere echoey before its engine was killed.

Shin had never been as terrified as he was in the moments that followed, waiting helplessly in the back of the van, staring at the rear doors, expecting them to swing open at any moment, expecting to see the Russian’s surprised eyes lock on to his before the man dragged him out, shot him, and dumped his lifeless body in some ditch.

His heartbeat had pounded out the seconds against his eardrums, but the doors didn’t open and the Russian never came.

Instead, he could barely make out some footsteps walking away, then back, then past the van in the other direction. Then there was silence.

And more silence.

Shin waited, as immobile as a wax figure. And waited. Then, after about an hour, maybe more, after not hearing a single sound for all that time, he decided he’d risk it.

Using extreme care, he opened the cabin door and peeked out. The van was parked inside some kind of garage. Faint light was filtering from somewhere, allowing him to make out some walls beyond the windshield, but none of the lights inside the space were on.

He climbed onto the passenger bench, then slowly, very slowly, he pulled the door handle until it clicked and cracked the door open. He waited. Didn’t hear anything. He pushed the door open farther and looked out.

An empty space, like a warehouse. Bare and basic.

He climbed down and gently set his feet on the ground, then pushed the door back against its locking mechanism without clicking it shut.

He hugged the wall and tiptoed toward the front of the large space, where moonlight was seeping in through some high clerestory windows that ran along the top of the wall.

There was a single door next to the large roller door of the warehouse. He tried it. The handle wouldn’t budge.

It was locked.

He cursed inwardly, then retreated and tried the first space he found to his left. It was a small room, also empty.

His spirits soared when he spotted a small top-hung window up in one of its corners, its sill around eight feet above ground level.

Moments later, he was scuttling away from the warehouse, keeping low, hugging the walls, hoping against hope that this wasn’t one of those tortuous bad jokes that life often liked to play, one where he’d soon find himself right back where he started, in the clutches of the murderous Russian and moments from a painful and very final death.