Ferguson offered no further reassurance. He began to walk away when Sykes called after him. Ferguson turned around. ‘What is it?’
Sykes caught up with him. ‘Olympus is a dead end, but they don’t know it is, do they?’
‘I’m not sure I follow you.’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
Ferguson had said the same thing to Sykes earlier, and Ferguson noted Sykes’s smug tone. He liked having the knowledge, the power.
‘No,’ Ferguson said. ‘It’s not.’
‘My point,’ Sykes explained with more than a little cockiness, ‘is that if they went to Seif, they’ll go there, to Olympus.’
Ferguson nodded, understanding, impressed. ‘Very good, Mr Sykes. Very good indeed.’
CHAPTER 58
London, United Kingdom
Thursday
04:02 CET
Reed stood next to his hotel-room window, peering into the city through the crack between wall and curtain. In the sliver of glass he could see the reflection of bare skin, limbs splayed on the sheets. The girl had her face toward the door, away from him, the golden waves of her hair spread across the pillow. The diffused light smoothed away what little imperfections she carried. Except to roll over, she hadn’t moved since he had climbed out of bed. He could see in the window the rise and fall of her chest, intermittent, not regular. Awake.
He took a sip from his drink as he watched her. In silence they had played this game for some time, of her pretending to sleep and his pretending not to watch. Reed slowly flexed the muscles of his arms from shoulder to wrist.
When she finally broke the silence, her voice was quiet. ‘Why are you watching me?’
Reed took another sip from his drink. ‘Why do you allow me to watch?’
She turned her head to look at him from over one slender shoulder. ‘Do you want to do me again?’
And she had displayed such elegance on arrival. Reed pivoted and leaned against the wall next to the window. It was cool against his naked back.
‘I shall respectfully decline.’
She laughed. ‘I just love the way you guys talk.’
Reed found it quite derisory that his acute Englishness impressed her. She claimed to be twenty-one, but was certainly younger. An Australian. He kept his contempt to himself and acknowledged her remark with a small nod. After finishing his London assignment Reed had remained in the city while he waited for the next update. The girl helped pass the time.
She reached for the remote and turned on the television.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’
Reed shook his head once. ‘Be my guest.’
She flicked through the channels with barely half a second’s pause on each. Her eyes were transfixed by the flashing images and constantly changing sound. He watched in quiet bewilderment of her simple pleasure.
There was a flash of blue in the dim light that immediately grabbed his attention. Reed walked to the source and took the smartphone from where he had left it on the sideboard. He opened the email. He read the message carefully, then a second time. He would go through the attached files as soon as he had left. He started picking up his clothes from the floor.
‘I have to leave,’ he said.
She pushed her small breasts together with her arms and pouted. ‘You sure?’
‘Alas, yes.’
To his surprise the girl looked genuinely disappointed. She sat up to better watch him dress. ‘Why?’
‘Work.’
‘But it’s late. Do you have to?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
She sighed. ‘You never told me what you do.’
Reed’s answer was honest.
‘I solve problems.’
CHAPTER 59
Rotov, Russia
Thursday
17:50 MSK
In the good old days all it took to get an operation moving was the will of a high-ranking officer. While the Soviet empire stood strong, the KGB moved fast and decisively, answering only to the very top. Things moved much slower these days, Aniskovach thought bitterly, and the power of the SVR was but a shadow of that which the KGB enjoyed. In twenty-first-century Russia, as in the SVR’s Western counterparts, layer on layer of bureaucracy strangled every command.
The tall SVR colonel rubbed his gloved hands together while he waited for the plane to be loaded. Grim-faced soldiers took aboard rucksacks full of supplies: diving gear, weapons, salvage equipment, and explosives. The plane was an Ilyushin Il-76, a venerable workhorse of the Soviet and now Russian air force. This particular plane was owned by the SVR and used exclusively by the organization. The original military insignias were still visible through the thin layer of paint that covered them. The hammer and sickle still endured, albeit faintly.
In his youth, Aniskovach had witnessed first-hand the last breath of Communism pushed from the lungs of his beloved nation. That system may not have worked as intended, but at least it had given his country its own ideology and a fiercely strong national identity. These days Russia was but capitalism’s poor adopted child struggling to take its first unassisted step. If Russia was a tree, it had already bathed in summer’s warmth and now was embraced by winter’s chill. Spring’s regrowth was a far off dream. Aniskovach hoped he lived long enough to see the restoration of Russia’s rightful place at the head of the world.
He stood silently observing. There was nothing to say. The soldiers did not need his instructions. They were members of the Spetsnaz, the Russian army’s special forces, but they were all, like Aniskovach, dressed in civilian clothes. Each member of the seven-man team had been selected because of his exemplary record in both diving and demolitions. Each one was a highly trained and superbly disciplined warrior, adept at planning and logistics as well as fighting. After Aniskovach had briefed the team on the mission’s objectives, they had selected their own equipment and supplies.
The SVR had no control of the Spetsnaz, which was a regiment of the Russian army, but at times the elite soldiers were loaned out to the SVR on a per-mission basis. Any such operations were usually kept off the soldiers’ records. The GRU, the army’s own intelligence service and a fierce rival of the SVR, would often be aware of these activities, but the GRU had no knowledge of this particular mission, thanks to Prudnikov’s influence.
Bypassing the usual channels was slowing the whole operation down considerably. Aniskovach, if it had been purely up to him, would have left for Tanzania at least twenty-four hours ago, but Prudnikov was playing it safe. He had been burned once recently and was not willing to feel the fire so soon a second time, even if Aniskovach was confident the mission would be a complete success. Securing both the services of the Spetsnaz without the knowledge of the GRU and a plane to fly the equipment had taken three whole days. It would be another day before the plane was able to fly.
The wind blowing from the east stung Aniskovach’s face, especially his wounded cheek. The base had little protection from elements. The single strip of runway and three hangars that constituted the airport were the
