“Hello!” The cry was in Russian. “I am Rugar! What is your name?”
Hansen whirled back, tore off his trifocals, and found the business end of a suppressed pistol in his face. The man holding the gun, Rugar, was of inhuman proportions, and besides offering a promise of death, he flashed a carnivorous grin that left Hansen as shocked as he was breathless over his grave error. He’d been so engrossed in the images coming to him via his goggles that he’d failed to check his six o’clock, and the snowstorm had done an excellent job of helping to conceal the big Russian’s approach.
“You didn’t answer my question,” added the fat man. “What’s your name?”
Hansen just stared.
Rugar chuckled lowly, clearly enjoying himself. “What’s the matter? You don’t speak Russian?”
Before Hansen could reply, Rugar’s phone rang, and in the instant he flicked his gaze down, Hansen lifted onto his left leg and delivered a roundhouse kick to Rugar’s hand, knocking the gun from the fat man’s grip. The pistol flew through the air several meters and landed in a pile of snow beside the service road.
Hansen then rolled around, reaching for his own pistol, but Rugar dropped on him like an avalanche, the snow blasting into Hansen’s face and blinding him.
As he groaned and struggled against Rugar’s immense weight, he realized the man had already seized his hand, the one going for his gun. He blinked, tried to move it, but then an elbow came down into his cheek, striking like a lead hammer.
In point of fact, Hansen had never been hit so hard in his life, even during all his training exercises, where they “trained as they fought.” Pinpricks of light winked among the snowflakes, and for a moment, he thought he might pass out. The blow now seemed to reverberate through his entire head, the pain growing roots that wrapped around his brain.
Nearly blind now, Hansen reached out, all his martial-arts training escaping from his memory, as though squeezed away by the man’s sheer weight, but he still had sheer instincts and muscle memory. He found Rugar’s cold ear, just beneath his hat, and seized it between his fingers.
Hansen tugged so hard that the fat man screamed and broke his grip, and as he moved slightly up, Hansen, in one massive expenditure of energy, rolled from beneath him. He came around onto his knees, drew his SC pistol, but Rugar was already there, delivering a solid jab to Hansen’s jaw that sent his head back even as once more the Russian seized his gun hand and began to pin him back onto the snow.
Hansen grabbed a handful of snow and shoved it in the man’s eyes, but Rugar didn’t need to see a damned thing in order to keep holding down Hansen’s wrist and pummeling the hell out of his hand. After three more blows, Rugar groaned and opened his mouth, a rabid dog ready to take his bite.
Suddenly Hansen’s fingers gave out, and the weapon fell free. Rugar grabbed the pistol and fell back on his ass, the snow falling on him, the wind cutting across them as Hansen sat up to face him. His hands throbbed as he lifted them and, in a voice that cracked, said, “I do speak Russian. My name is Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev.”
Rugar did not appreciate the quip. Hansen was certainly not the president of the Russian Federation. Rugar cursed at him and, still holding him at gunpoint, finally answered his ringing phone: “Yes, I have him. What? You did what? Oh, no. Okay? You want me to kill him?”
Rugar lowered his phone.
“You can’t kill me,” Hansen told the man in a jovial tone.
“Oh, really?”
Hansen began to laugh. “Yes. My gun is empty, you fool.”
In the moment it took for Rugar to look down at the weapon, Hansen was rushing away, up toward the service road, where Rugar’s weapon had landed.
Rugar screamed for Hansen to halt, and Hansen wasn’t sure why he did, but he stole a look back just as Rugar fired.
The anesthetic dart struck on the neck, just below Hansen’s left earlobe.
The fat Russian recoiled in surprise. “Tranquilizer?” “See you when I wake up.” Hansen grinned and collapsed to the snow. A warm wave broke over his head and traveled down into his feet. The throbbing from Rugar’s beating withered away, and every other ache and pain was replaced by the strange sensation of being weightless in a dark pool, in which he saw Grim shaking her head at him.
She opened her mouth, but when she spoke, a fat Russian man’s voice came out: “He’s unconscious but alive. I’m going to bring him back, and I will question him.”
10
Sergei had remained behind the fuel truck and watched in shock as Bratus gunned down his colleagues, the two loading men from the chopper, and the pilots. The Russian operative was a one-man killing machine, his silenced weapon thumping, his shots expertly placed. He’d taken out Murdoch’s driver, and then, almost matter-of- factly, he’d made a phone call.
Following that, he’d begun trying in vain to open the big Anvil case that now lay on the snow-swept tarmac. The locks must have had digital combinations, because he didn’t bother to check the bodies for keys. At one point he rose, stepped back, and fired a round into one lock to no avail.
And then a most amazing sight: A lumberjack of a man came forward from the service road with a body slung over his shoulder. Not until he came much closer did Sergei realize that the giant was carrying Hansen.
With his pulse beginning to race, Sergei thought of heading back to the car, but he had to be sure that Hansen was dead. At least the job had been completed, if not by Sergei’s hand. He wouldn’t collect the money, but perhaps they’d leave Victoria alone. Who was he kidding? Nothing was certain now.
For just a moment Sergei allowed himself to feel the pain of his friend’s loss. He heard Hansen assure him, “I’m your friend.” He remembered their time together at the CIA, their training on “The Farm,” the practical jokes and the camaraderie, the pain they’d shared in Somalia, and that time Hansen had taken him out for drinks on his birthday and treated him like a brother…
With eyes beginning to burn, he shifted around the truck to get a better view. The giant in the funny little hat set Hansen’s body down near one of the cars; then, as Bratus shouted, the gaint hurried over to the Anvil case. They carried the case to Bratus’s car and were able to open the pass-through so they could load it between the trunk and backseat, along with Murdoch and Zhao. They transferred all the Chinese bodies from the helicopter into Murdoch’s car, since Zhao had left his car at the pub and had ridden along with Bratus.
After that, the big guy picked up Hansen and headed toward one of the hangars. Meanwhile, Bratus stood by his car and made another phone call, waiting impatiently for an answer.
Sergei frowned. The fat man was taking Hansen inside the hangar. Why? To question him? That meant Hansen might still be alive. They’d knocked him out? How? And why would they remain here, at the scene of multiple murders, to question a spy they’d captured? Why not take him someplace else? Maybe they didn’t feel rushed. Maybe this was all planned from the beginning.
Sergei waited a moment more; then he darted away from the fuel truck toward the back of the hangar. He found the rear service door locked, of course, but he always carried his picking tools, and within a few breaths the knob turned freely.
Wincing, he carefully opened the door and slipped, save for a slight gust of wind, soundlessly inside. He now crouched behind a pair of helicopters, small ones reserved mostly for business travel. Nearby was a wall of mechanics’ stations with power and air tools cluttering the benches. A pair of rolling carts with stacks of drawers sat beside one bird, and Sergei took up a position behind the taller cart while the fat man switched on a light near another station on the opposite side of the hangar. Once more he set down Hansen’s body. Then he went into a small adjoining office and returned with a wooden chair. He propped Hansen on the chair and proceeded to flex-cuff him to it. That the fat man walked around with flex-cuffs in his pocket said a lot about his line of work.
He grabbed Hansen by the hair, stared into his face, then grumbled something and let Hansen’s head drop.
