Betrayal (21 page)

Mason had asked him if this was all worth it. Soon enough he would know.

Anya was uncharacteristically tense and agitated as the aircraft ploughed through low-altitude turbulence, grey clouds whipping by the window at hundreds of miles an hour, just inches from her face. The pilots had given them the weather forecast as they started their descent – low cloud, rain and gusty wind.

She was no stranger to adverse weather, but she preferred to endure it on the ground, standing on her own two feet. Not hurtling through the sky and being thrown around inside this oversized tin can.

Her only consolation was that, according to her seat-mounted TV screen, they were less than five minutes out from their destination.

In five minutes she would be on the ground. It couldn’t come soon enough.

The seconds seemed to tick by with agonising slowness as Drake sat at his table with bad music blaring from the cheap speakers overhead, all his attention now focused on the corridor at the far end of the arrivals lounge. At any moment the automatic doors would shudder open and the first groups of passengers would start to appear.

Once again his radio crackled into life. ‘The plane is at the gate. They will start disembarking now,’ Miranova said. ‘Stand by.’

‘Copy that,’ Drake replied.

He looked over at Mason. His friend, his former teammate, once one of the best specialists he knew. Now a desperate man with suspect motives, a worryingly insubordinate streak and 18 months’ worth of pent-up resentment to contend with. For better or worse, he was the only person within 1,000 miles that Drake could trust.

‘Ready?’

The older man nodded, his eyes now clear and focused. The experienced Shepherd operative ready to go into action once more.

The only question was what would happen next.

As soon as she was out through the doorway and clear of the plane, Anya quickened her pace, eager to escape the slow, death-like procession of weary travellers trudging up the jet bridge. She had places to be, and the one place she didn’t want to be was right here.

Her only belongings were stuffed inside a small canvas satchel slung over one shoulder. She had no luggage to collect, allowing her to breeze straight through baggage reclaim while her fellow travellers dawdled and waited for the conveyor belts to disgorge their suitcases.

Anya always travelled light these days, ready to leave wherever she was staying at a moment’s notice, and rarely carrying anything that couldn’t be easily replaced. Even the contents of her satchel could be dumped without causing any real problems. She had committed any important phone numbers, names, locations and other operational details to memory as a precaution.

She was a ghost, existing for most people only as long as she was within their line of sight, and vanishing again when they parted.

She supposed it had been that way for most of her life. She had never been inclined towards sentimentality, never desired mementos or keepsakes to mark the things she had done. It was just as well, because her world had been turned upside down so many times that she now possessed almost nothing of the life she’d been born into.

No evidence of the person she’d once been, and could have become.

Passport control was another hurdle easily overcome, the bored-looking customs officer giving her only a cursory glance before swiping her fake passport through the electronic reader. Passports were becoming more sophisticated these days and therefore harder to forge, but there were still a few people with the skill and the resources to produce reliable forgeries. And Anya knew most of them.

With her documents returned, Anya adjusted the satchel on her shoulder, tucked her passport into the front pocket of her jeans where no one could get to it without her knowing, and strode eagerly towards the arrivals lounge.

‘This is it,’ Drake hissed as the automatic doors shuddered open and the first crowd of passengers emerged into the arrivals lounge. Few were moving with any great speed or urgency, not that he could blame them. If he called Chechnya home, he wouldn’t exactly be excited to be back.

Nonetheless, he was thankful for the relatively slow pace as his eyes darted from face to face, desperately seeking the one he needed. Anya was no stranger to disguises, and he expected her to have altered her appearance, but he was sure he would recognise her. There were some things that went far deeper than superficial looks.

‘You see her?’ Mason whispered, scanning the new arrivals. He too had encountered Anya during her rescue the previous year, though it had been brief to say the least. Drake had little faith in Mason’s ability to spot her, disguised or not.

In any case, he wasn’t going to waste time talking now. All his attention was focused on the passengers making their way out through the automatic doors, some in groups, others as couples and some travelling alone. Each one was rapidly analysed, compared with the memory of the woman he knew, and discarded.

On some level he was aware that his intense stare would catch the attention of anyone looking his way, but he couldn’t help himself. This might be his one chance to find Anya before things escalated out of control. It had to work.

His radio crackled. ‘We see nothing yet,’ Miranova reported, her voice showing the strain for the first time. ‘Anything at your end, Ryan?’

Keeping his eyes glued to the crowds, Drake reached down, felt around and pressed his transmit button. ‘Nothing yet. Stand by.’

‘Copy that.’

He could feel his heart hammering in his chest. His mouth was dry, his palms coated with a faint sheen of sweat. The thump of the bad music in the overhead speakers was matched by the pounding of his pulse as his silent, strained vigil continued.

An old man and woman holding hands, neither of them the right height or age for Anya. No good.

Behind them, a middle-aged woman with long greying hair, overweight and matronly. Move on.

Then he spotted her.

Partially hidden behind a group of men in expensive but unfashionably cut suits was a tall slender woman with blonde hair, dressed in a dark coat and jeans. The same sort of coat he’d seen Anya wearing in DC. She walked with the long, purposeful strides of one used to exercise and exertion, and who was in a hurry to get somewhere.

‘Look sharp, mate,’ he whispered, tensing up, preparing to move. ‘Behind the three businessmen. Dark overcoat.’

‘I see her,’ Mason confirmed. ‘You got positive ID?’

Drake peered closer, trying to get a proper look. One of the businessmen, taller than his two companions, was partly blocking Drake’s view. Her head was turned down, either because she was absorbed in something or because she was trying to avoid being spotted on security cameras. Either way, strands of blonde hair had fallen in front of her face.

‘Almost,’ he hissed, eyes locked on her as she strode towards them, sidestepping the slower businessmen. ‘Stand by.’

Slowly he eased his chair back from the table. He didn’t want anything getting in his way when he went for her. It had to be perfect.

In his mind he imagined Mason barking into his radio that he’d spotted the target, jumping up from his seat and rushing towards some unsuspecting traveller while the rest of the undercover FSB agents scrambled to get there first. At the same moment, and with everyone’s attention focused on the spectacle of armed officials tackling a man to the ground, Drake imagined himself moving in on Anya.

She wouldn’t be panicking at that moment. He couldn’t imagine her ever panicking. But she would have gone into survival mode, her keen mind quickly assessing the situation and the threats facing her before deciding on a course of action. Whether that course of action involved trying to slip unobtrusively away or killing anyone in her path, only time would tell.

But she would see him long before he reached her – of that much he was certain. She was always aware of her surroundings, and she knew him well enough to recognise him in a crowd. A great deal would depend on what happened in the second or two after she spotted him – whether she turned and ran, or trusted him enough to let him approach.

He could only hope she knew he wouldn’t betray her to anyone.

Drake tensed the muscles in his legs, planting his feet firmly on the ground in preparation for his move as Anya moved out from behind the group of businessmen and glanced up at the overhead signs.

But it wasn’t Anya, he realised as he got his first proper look at her. The woman in question was easily a decade younger, with a rounded, soft-featured face and eyes that had seen none of the hardships Anya had endured.

It wasn’t her. He’d been wrong.

‘Stand down,’ Drake said, letting out the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. He was torn between relief, crushing disappointment and dismay that it had been a false alarm.

‘Shit, that was close,’ he heard Mason gasp.

‘Ryan, we have no contact here,’ Miranova’s voice buzzed in his ear. ‘Repeat, no sign of target.’

The traffic from the arrivals gate was thinning now as the last of the passengers wandered out, and Anya wasn’t amongst them.

‘I don’t get it. This was the right flight,’ Mason said, equally perplexed. ‘Where the fuck is she, Ryan?’

Drake had no answer for him.

Tbilisi, Georgia

The weather had abated a little by the time the automatic doors parted and Anya strode outside, taking her first breath of real air in what felt like days. It was still chilly, but the rain had eased off and, looking up, she even saw tantalising glimpses of blue sky through tears in the patchy clouds.

Not bad for December in Georgia.

It would have been foolish in the extreme to have flown under the same identity she’d used to rent the car that had got her out of DC. It would have been all too easy for a skilled and dedicated signals technician to use such a digital trail to track her down.

The real Olga Vorontsova whose identity she had borrowed for the car rental had indeed flown from Montreal to Moscow. Anya had no idea what the woman, chosen because she bore a passing resemblance to herself, had done after that, nor did she care. Olga had served her purpose of misdirecting Anya’s pursuers and buying her some time.

Anya meanwhile had taken a different flight under a different name that had no possible connection to the sniper attack in DC, and which she had no fear of being compromised. A transatlantic flight from Montreal to Amsterdam had been followed by a relatively short hop to Georgia, a former Soviet republic lying on the south-western border of Russia.

And now, after almost twenty-four hours and several thousand miles of travelling, she was close to her rendezvous.

Spying signs for the taxi rank, she hurried onwards and selected the first vehicle she came across, not caring whether the rates were competitive. The driver, an overweight man with a thatch of wiry grey hair that reminded her of a bird’s nest, certainly seemed grateful for her business as she approached.

‘Where would you like to go?’ he asked, speaking his native Georgian with the slight wariness of one used to dealing with clueless foreigners.

‘Central Tbilisi,’ Anya said, settling herself in the back seat. The cab looked surprisingly clean, but smelled of cigarette smoke and other less savoury odours that she suspected belonged to the driver rather than the vehicle. ‘Freedom Square.’

‘No problem.’

Norilsk, Siberia

McKnight, along with Stav and the floor manager, were crowded on to a massive freight elevator with a dozen other miners as it slowly descended the main shaft of Norilsk nickel mine into the bowels of the earth. More than a few curious and sometimes leering glances had been thrown her way, but the presence of Stav had been enough to deter further interest.

Frost, much to her chagrin, had been left behind in the manager’s office to trawl through his computer and printed records in search of any evidence of tampering on Umarov’s part. McKnight knew she would much rather be here in the thick of the action, but her task was an equally important one. If they brought Umarov in and he wasn’t inclined to talk, they needed evidence to confront him with.

As a passing nod to safety, she had been forced into over-sized protective gear, with a bulky helmet, eye goggles and a portable air-filtration unit slung over her shoulder like a rucksack.

‘Every unit has an electronic tag in it,’ the manager had explained. ‘So we know who enters and leaves the mine. But it is dangerous down here. If something happens to you, I am not responsible.’

She’d understood him well enough. He was taking no blame if she was killed by falling rocks or crushed by a loader.

The minutes ticked by and still they kept descending. McKnight felt herself growing more uncomfortable by the moment. She’d never had much of a problem with enclosed spaces, but by now she was acutely aware of the thousands of tons of rock above her head. It was not a pleasant thought.

‘How deep is this mine?’ she asked, hoping her unease was lost in translation.

‘One thousand three hundred metres. Some of the shafts go much deeper.’

Almost a mile below the earth’s surface. Great, she thought as the elevator continued its slow, measured descent.

‘You don’t like underground, yes?’ Stav prompted.

‘You could say that.’

‘It is same for me.’

She glanced at him. His face betrayed not a hint of apprehension or unease.

‘Really?’

‘
Da
. When I was kid, I got lost in caves near my home. Six hours I was stuck there in the dark before my father find me. He took me home and calmed me down. Then he beat the shit out of me for being stupid and careless.’ He snorted in amusement. ‘I did not get lost again after that.’

What a wonderful childhood that must have been, she thought.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the huge lift bumped to a halt. The steel gates keeping them penned in were opened by a soot-stained worker on the other side, and the miners shuffled forwards to clock in and begin their shift.

Emerging from the main shaft, McKnight found herself staring at a maze of galleries, tunnels, cross-shafts and smaller access passageways that confronted her, all of them thronging with miners moving to and from the loading areas. In stark contrast to the frigid Arctic environment above ground, down here the air was warm and stifling. Harsh electric lights shone bravely through the dust and fumes.