Betrayal (59 page)

‘Fuck the Kremlin, and fuck their special commission!’ he raged, frustration and desperation surging up within him. ‘I could ruin all of them. Do they know who the fuck I am? Do they know the things I’ve done for this country?’

‘That’s the problem,’ Polunin replied, his voice frighteningly cold and detached. Already he was pulling away, distancing himself from Surovsky. A rat deserting a sinking ship. ‘They know exactly who you are, and now they’re beginning to question what exactly you’ve done. My advice to you is to find a good lawyer. You’ll be needing one.’

Saying nothing more, he hung up.

‘Fuck!’ Surovsky snarled, slamming the phone down in its cradle.

It was all falling apart. His career, his legacy, his very life was unravelling around him, and he was rapidly running out of means to stop it. He was calling in every favour, trying to threaten, plead or reason with influential men in the Russian government to help him in his hour of need, but none of it was working.

He was political poison. Nobody wanted anything to do with him in the light of accusations like this. People he’d known for decades brushed his requests of help aside as if he were a beggar on the street. In Russia, one quickly learned to know the difference between a man in difficulty, and a lost cause who could easily drag others down with him. Surovsky was now firmly in the latter category.

He raised the glass to his lips again, only to find it empty.

Cursing under his breath, he threw open the door and limped down the short hallway to the dacha’s expansive living room.

And there, he stopped in his tracks.

The two FSB bodyguards he had employed to accompany him out here were lying sprawled on the floor, their blood soaking into the expensive rug he’d had imported from Saudi Arabia two years previously.

And beyond them, seated comfortably in one of the room’s leather recliner chairs with a silenced handgun trained on him, was a woman.

A dead woman. A ghost.

The glass fell from his grip, shattering on the polished floorboards with a musical tinkling, tiny fragments peppering his feet and ankles. He was oblivious to it. All his attention was focused on the ghost, on the icy blue eyes staring back at him, piercing in their intensity.

‘Hello, Viktor,’ Anya said. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

For several seconds, not a word was said. The old man and the woman stared at each other across the open space, each taking the measure of the other.

Surovsky needed a moment to recover from the shock of seeing her again, to assure himself that she was indeed real and not some horrific, fevered product of his imagination. But she was real. And the two dead agents lying on the floor in front of her, like trophies placed there in homage to a god of war and death, were mute testimony to the terrible skills she still commanded.

He made no attempt to flee. Even if she wasn’t armed, she could easily outpace him on his injured leg. Instead he stood his ground and looked a little closer at her, comparing her to the woman he’d once known.

She looked older now, Surovsky caught himself thinking. The first time he’d met Anya, she had been a young woman of seventeen, her youthful prettiness giving a tantalising hint of the woman she would one day become. Indeed, that was part of the reason he had chosen her, knowing that beauty could be a weapon as effective as any other.

She had changed in the quarter of a century since that day; grown stronger, harder, colder. The trials and hardships of the life she’d lived had left their indelible marks on her, both inside and out. She was still strikingly attractive, no doubt still able to use that beauty to her advantage just as he’d taught her, but the soul that lurked behind those icy blue eyes was one that struck fear even into his heart.

All the more so because he had had a hand in shaping it.

‘I was told you were dead,’ he said quietly. Drake, McKnight, and the few of Atayev’s men who had survived the assault on the warehouse in Moscow, had all sworn the same thing – that Atayev himself had shot Anya dead and pitched her body into the river. How could they all have been lying?

Moscow, 24 December 2008

‘I don’t suppose you can tell me where you’re going?’ Atayev asked, his tone one of mild curiosity.

‘Better that you don’t know,’ Anya replied honestly.

‘Perhaps so,’ he conceded. It made little difference to him now anyway. He held out his hand. ‘Goodbye, Anya. And … good luck.’

Anya gripped it and held his gaze for a long moment. This would be the last time they spoke. She hadn’t been told what the final stage of Atayev’s plan entailed, but she knew one thing for certain – it would end with his death.

For now, however, she had her own death to take care of.

Releasing her grip, she turned and walked away, having to force herself to take each step. Turning her back on a man with a gun was foreign to her nature, especially when she knew that gun was about to be used on her.

Ten steps and he would fire. Seven to go.

Anya wasn’t often inclined to entrust her life to others. She certainly hadn’t had good experiences with such things in the past. But against her better judgement, she trusted Buran Atayev.

Four steps to go.

Her left hand closed around a small electric detonator hidden inside her jacket sleeve. The detonator wire trailed up her arm and into a pair of blank squibs fixed to the back and front of her vest, each with a small plastic bag of blood secured over them.

The blood was real. It was even her own, extracted from a vein in her left arm only minutes earlier, in case forensics wished to analyse it. The only fake thing would be the manner in which it was shed.

Two steps.

Anya took a breath, tensing herself in preparation. She had been shot before while wearing Kevlar vests. It was never a pleasant experience, and she was quite certain she would have some impressive bruises when this was over, but with a little luck she would be alive to see it.

She was about to find out.

She felt the impact of the bullet before she heard the shot, slamming into her back slightly to the left of her spine. Perfect. At the same moment she triggered the detonator, watching with satisfaction as blood sprayed from her chest.

She staggered forwards and collapsed into a muddy pool of water, putting on a show of trying to get up despite her mortal injury, while Atayev closed in on her. Right on cue, he kicked her over on to her back, raised the weapon and fired a second shot into the centre of her chest.

Fired at such close range, she felt the bruising impact more than the first shot, and it was all she could do to keep from crying out in pain. Instead she forced herself to slump back into the pool of freezing water.

With her ‘death’ complete, she allowed her body to go limp as two of Atayev’s men hoisted her up and carried her over to the canal. She didn’t make a sound, even as their hands pressed against the fresh bruising beneath her vest. They weren’t in on this plan, so if they suspected anything was wrong, it was all for nothing.

A single swing to build up momentum, and suddenly she was released, falling like a stone into the canal. She took a breath, bracing herself as the frigid water enveloped her like a million needles pressing into her flesh all at once.

She did her best to push aside the pain, knowing the cold wouldn’t prove fatal. She had always been a strong swimmer, and was no stranger to freezing water. And despite the discomfort, her clothes would provide enough insulation to keep hypothermia at bay. At least for a while.

She had made sure to include a few lead weights in her vest so that she would sink quickly beneath the surface. The water here was, she knew, murky and dark, with visibility extending only a few feet beneath the surface.

Once she was certain she had disappeared from view, she began to kick, propelling herself beneath the surface with sure, powerful strokes towards the end of the canal where it discharged into the Moskva River. She could hold her breath underwater for a good minute or so if she was exerting herself; enough to get her away from Atayev and his men, away from the warehouse, away from Drake. And away from the FSB agents who had been tasked with hunting her down.

She knew they wouldn’t stop until she was dead. The only way for her plan to succeed was to give them what they wanted.

Surovsky saw a hint of a smile. ‘Illusion, Viktor. It’s the key to any game.’

He said nothing to that. Their ‘game’ wasn’t over yet.

‘How did you find me?’ Only a few people on earth knew the location of his private residence. That was precisely why he’d come here, knowing he was safe from reporters, safe from investigators, safe even from his own government.

But apparently not safe from Anya.

Anya reached into her pocket and held up a cellphone. ‘All I needed was your private number.’

It was all he could do to keep from sighing in frustration. The purpose of the cyber attack on the FSB’s network was all too obvious now. It hadn’t been done with the intention of compromising their systems and laying waste to the agency’s secrets, but instead to gather a single, vital piece of information.

With his private phone number and a little resourcefulness, Anya could track him anywhere on the face of the earth. And with Moscow no longer safe for him, she had known he would retreat somewhere he believed to be safe, with only a few loyal security personnel she could easily overcome.

It had all been a ruse, he realised now. Her cooperation with Atayev, the men she had killed, the risks she had taken; all of these things had been nothing but stepping stones on her path, each one bringing her a little closer to her goal, to the man she had been pursuing with single-minded purpose.

All of it to bring her to this room, here and now. So she could confront the man who had twice tried to destroy her.

‘You did all of this to get your hands on me.’

Anya rose from the chair, her eyes still fixed on him. ‘You went to a lot of trouble to get your hands on me in Afghanistan, and again in Iraq. Both times you made a lasting impression on me. I thought it was about time I returned the favour.’

‘So what now?’

She raised her weapon. ‘Now we go for a walk, Viktor.’

A couple of minutes later, Anya emerged from the dacha with Surovsky in front of her, his hands firmly bound behind his back. Her car was parked some distance away, beyond the building’s security perimeter. The old man had a long walk ahead of him, in sub-zero temperatures at night.

She shoved him forwards, eager to be out of here. But she’d only covered 10 yards before she halted, catching something in her peripheral vision. After years of operating in environments where a single lapse in judgement could mean the difference between life and death, her senses were attuned to any tiny shift in her surroundings. And more than that, she had learned to trust her instincts.

Someone was watching her.

She gripped her M1911 tighter, took a deep breath and whirled around, dropping down on one knee to make herself a smaller target as she levelled the weapon at her enemy.

‘Don’t,’ Kamarov warned.

He was standing about 15 yards away, covering her with an MP-443 handgun, not flinching for an instant. His face was set and grim, muscles taut, finger tight on the trigger. He had the drop on her.

Anya froze, her weapon still pointed at the ground. She knew that one pull of the trigger was all it would take to end her plans for revenge right here. Even if Kamarov wasn’t an excellent marksman, which she knew from experience he was, he could scarcely miss at such range.

So she did nothing. She waited, her mind racing. She hadn’t anticipated this. She hadn’t anticipated him.

They remained like that for a few seconds, neither moving a muscle. The tall pine trees at the edge of the clearing swayed and rustled, stirred by the cold night breeze.

Just for a moment, a fleeting smile crossed her face. A bitter, ironic smile. Twice now this man had been pitted against her, and twice she had lost. How appropriate that he should return now, at the end.

One last obstacle to overcome.

‘Remember what I said to you once, Anya?’ Surovsky remarked, a triumphant smile creasing his pockmarked old face. ‘I’ve played this game a lot longer than you. And I’ll still be playing it long after you’re gone.’ He looked over at Kamarov. ‘Kill her, Alexei. We’re done here.’

Anya tensed, readying herself to act. Her first target would be Surovsky. Even if Kamarov killed her for it, no way would she allow that man to live.

To her surprise, however, the FSB agent did nothing. He just stood there covering her, his finger on the trigger but no more.

‘I gave you an order,’ Surovsky said, a harder edge in his voice now. ‘Kill her.’

Kamarov ignored him. His eyes, staring down the weapon’s sights, were locked with Anya’s.

‘We’re both getting a little old for this, don’t you think?’ he said sadly.

Twenty years ago they had both been soldiers, both strong and fit and in the prime of their lives. Now, looking at Kamarov, she saw the toll that two decades had taken on him. His face, lit by the pale light of the crescent moon overhead, was deeply lined and creased, his cheeks hollow, his hair turning grey.

He was right, they were both getting old.

‘Give this up,’ he implored her. ‘Drop your gun.’

‘And go back to prison?’ Anya raised her chin, defiant to the end. ‘Not this time.’

For a moment she saw a flicker of the man he’d once been. The man who had rescued her from that prison cell in Afghanistan, who had shown mercy and compassion in a place where such things had been almost forgotten.

The man who had saved her life.

Afghanistan, 7 November 1988

With her weary heart hammering in her chest and her raw, bloody wrists straining against her bonds, Anya tried to ready herself for what was coming, tried to marshal whatever feeble reserves of strength and endurance she could still call upon to meet the next onslaught.