Sam pulled off his jacket as he fell against the wall, ripping the sleeve from the seams and wrapping it around his thigh. He gritted his teeth and pulled it tight, grunting with agony as he stemmed the flow of blood. The makeshift tourniquet quickly stopped the blood oozing out and he took a few moments to catch his breath. His body was screaming for sleep, the blood loss had weakened him nearly to the point of collapse.
But he couldn’t.
Jasmine was still in the port and he needed to make sure Singh got to her and got her out.
Sam limped to the stairs, grimacing as he forced himself up, stopping at each floor for a slight bit of respite from the pain. Eventually, he stumbled through the door to the ninth floor, the abandoned control room was a mausoleum of dusty desks and glass screen panels. Part of the roof had been removed, a tribute to the work that had never been completed. The rain crashed through, splattering the desks with freezing water. From the metal beams that had been exposed, a number of chains swung down, some of them with rusty hooks which rattled in the wind.
Sam assumed they were set up as a makeshift winch at some point, but with the renovation clearly abandoned some time ago, they now acted as nothing more than heavy wind chimes.
Sam weaved through the desks to the far window, the glass panel giving a wide view of the port below. Flashes of light drew his attention, machine guns spitting bullets with murderous intent.
The war was still continuing.
In some ways, Sam felt like it had never stopped.
He reached beneath the windowsill for the black sports bag he had stowed there earlier that evening. Inside it, his Accuracy International Arctic Warfare bolt action sniper rifle waited patiently.
Behind him, the chains rattled, and wind whistled through the empty building. The sounds camouflaged the surprisingly soft footsteps of the behemoth, Oleg Kovalenko, as he slowly approached Sam Pope from the shadows.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Oleg Kovalenko had followed Sam the moment he’d left Aaron Hill’s house. The opportunity to enter the property and beat the truth out of the civilian had been mooted by his sister, who always seemed to want to hurt people. Dana was so very pretty, but Oleg knew that an evil rested within her.
Not like his brother, Andrei.
Oleg idolised him and obeyed every word. Ever since they were younger, nasty boys had called Oleg names. Despite his size, none of them were scared of Oleg because his brain didn’t work as quickly as theirs did. They would hurl abuse at him whenever he was alone, calling him a freak and saying all sorts of horrible things about Dana. Oleg would cry, not knowing why they would hate him so much.
When Andrei found out, he would scream at Oleg to shut them up, to show them how strong he was. Oleg was too afraid, but everything changed after that blood-filled night. Andrei had taken beating after beating from their father, not allowing him near his younger siblings. Oleg knew, that even as a teenager, he was bigger than most fully grown men, but their father terrified him. The man was an animal and Oleg had witnessed him brutally kicking Andrei in the ribs, his older brother coughing up blood but refusing to cry.
He was so brave.
When the time came, and Andrei told both he and Dana that Papa was dead, they knew he had done it for all of them. After that, Oleg promised to always listen to his brother, who had encouraged him to join the army. There, despite his mental limitations, Oleg proved to be a physical specimen beyond most and his lack of compassion made him a cold and calculating killer. Even under extreme torture when the Russian Special Forces melted the left side of his face with a blow torch, Oleg had stayed quiet.
Because his brother had told him to be the best soldier he could be.
It was why, when he joined his brother in London, he followed every order. He had thrown every punch he had been commanded to and he had killed ruthlessly whenever asked. Oleg had tortured, beaten, maimed, and murdered at the behest of his brother. It was a loyalty, bound by blood and the reason why, as he watched Sam Pope stumbled towards the windowsill, he knew he would kill him.
Andrei wanted Pope dead.
So Oleg would kill him without thinking twice.
As he crept forward from the shadows, Oleg felt proud of his ability to hide, the skills he had learnt during his seven years in the army had kept him off of Pope’s radar and had taught him what Sam was doing. Sam had placed a weapon here, in case things got out of hand. By the sound of gunfire outside, Oleg realised it had descended into a war zone. He was worried for Andrei, but he knew his brother could take care of himself.
As Pope pulled open the bag, Oleg could see the fabric tightly wrapped around his leg, the left side of his jeans dark with blood. Pope had clearly been shot, and he grunted with pain as he unzipped the bag, the barrel of a sniper rifle visible under the floodlights from outside.
Pope was going to shoot Andrei.
Oleg lunged.
Abandoning his subtlety, the monstrous Ukrainian emerged from the darkness like a demon from the gates of hell. Sam turned just in time, his eyes wide with shock as the mutilated face snarled at him, two massive hands reaching out and grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket.
Sam felt his left leg buckle, and the man crashed his solid, charred skull into his face, the blow snapping Sam’s head back and sending his entire brain into a whirlwind. Oleg swung Sam by his jacket, crashing the side of his head against the metal window frame before hurling him back into the room, Sam stumbling back until his
