Lone Wolf (12 page)

“So we fire to incapacitate, rather than kill, right?”

“On the inside, anyway. Anyone on the outside who tries to get in our way is fair game. We need to eliminate them as quickly as possible, because they will alert the guards inside whatever house or structure we're dealing with.”

Moose chuckled. “There's a very good silencer on the sniper rifle,” he said. “If we can spot external guards, I can take them out at a distance.”

“Good, then that's another option. Let's wait till we see the lay of the land, then I'll decide how to handle it.”

“Then, what I'm going to do is cruise past wherever they stop,” Sarah said. “I don't want them to pay a whole lot of attention to us. Once we see where they're at, I can circle the area to give you a better chance to look things over.”

Noah nodded his head. “That'll be perfect,” he said. “We want to get out of the car some distance away from whatever house or building they go to, so that we can approach from an unexpected direction. This is the kind of situation where stealth is key.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes, and then Sarah glanced over at Noah. She turned her eyes back to the road. “Does it get to you, when you know you're going into a situation like this? Does the adrenaline start pumping?”

Noah turned his head to look at her. “No,” he said. “I know what you mean, because I've heard other people talk about it, but I've never experienced it.” He held out his left wrist to her. “Check my pulse if you want to. Strong and steady, and I've had doctors who have gone crazy trying to figure it out. I guess it's part of my disorder, but I don't get excited or apprehensive before I go into a conflict situation.”

Sarah swallowed hard. “My heart is racing,” she said. “I'm sure my blood pressure is probably up, too, even though I'm not the one who's going to be shooting people or getting shot at. I get—I don't know, I get all swelled up inside, whenever I know you're going to...”

Noah watched her for a few seconds. “Going to what?”

She made a nervous smile and shrugged. “When I know you're going to kill someone. It gets me all—pumped up, excited...”

“It turns her on, man,” Moose said from the backseat. “Sarah, don't let it get to you. That's perfectly normal. I guarantee you, as soon as this mission is over, Elaine and I are going to lock ourselves into my place and not come out for a week.”

Noah glanced at him, but then looked back at Sarah, who was blushing. “He's right about it being normal, at least for anyone but me. I don't have that reaction, for some reason. I just go in and do my job.” He reached his hand up then and caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, then leaned over and whispered in her ear. “The only thing that ever gets me that excited is you.”

Sarah's eyes went wide, and her head spun to look at him for just a second before it snapped back to the road. Noah saw the smile that she was barely able to suppress, but said nothing.

He hadn't lied to her; she definitely did get him excited, especially in the night. Noah had had girlfriends in the past, though he’d never had a relationship that lasted more than a few weeks. He had learned long ago, back when he and his best friend Molly were teenagers and casual lovers, that his libido was just as active as any other male's, but the truth was that he would find himself aroused and excited whenever he was in the company of a willing young woman.

As she’d told Allison, Sarah had decided that, since E & E operatives could not have normal relationships, a “no-strings” relationship with Noah would be the next best thing, and his body certainly enjoyed the physical pleasures she brought along, but he occasionally wondered if she expected more from him that he was able to give. The way his mind worked, he would willingly do things to make her happy, but if the situation required him to walk away or abandon her, Noah would do so without a moment's remorse. It wasn't that he didn't care about her, it was just that he was incapable of having such feelings, for her or anyone else.

“We're getting close,” Sarah said. “Kubinka should be coming up within the next five miles or so.”

“All right, then keep that limo in sight, but try not to be too obvious about it.”

Sarah smirked. “Chill out,” she said, “this is my specialty, remember?”

K
ubinka owed a lot of its history to the Soviet Union's military. It had once been the home of the USSR's tank proving grounds, now housing the Russian tank museum, and had a fairly large military airbase. Most of the current town was made up of former barracks, many of which had been converted to homes or apartment buildings, combined with a number of small villages that had cropped up around the area. In fact, it had not even been known as a town until 2004.

Since then, however, there had been an influx of citizens, as jobs opened up due to manufacturing facilities coming into the area. As a result, there were some very nice homes in town, several of which were just off of the main road in town, known as Naro-Fominskoye. This was a broad street that ran north to south, and led into a more affluent area.

The interesting thing about the town was that it seemed to be built within a forest. Many of the houses and buildings were surrounded by trees, with dense foliage that made it almost impossible to see one house from another.

The limousine turned left onto a side street, but then immediately turned into a driveway of the house on the corner. Sarah cruised past as if uninterested, but then turned left herself on the second street after that one. She took the first left she came to then, and circled back around until they could see the limo still parked at the same house.

“This is amazing,” Noah said. “The trees are thick enough to cover our approach, but they've almost certainly got security in there, as well. Sarah, go up another block and let us out. Moose, give me a Glock and an Uzi, and you bring the rifle and a pistol. I'm hoping we can spot them before they spot us, and we’ll see just how good you are with that sniper scope.”

Moose handed him the weapons he asked for, then picked up his own. Sarah came to a stop at the next corner, which was hidden by trees from every direction, and the two men slipped out. Noah looked at the girl before he closed the door, and said, “Park somewhere that lets you keep an eye on the house, and I'm pretty sure you'll know when to come pick us up.”

“Stay safe,” she said as he shut the door, and then she drove away.

Noah and Moose stepped into the wooded area beside the road, moving slowly and quietly toward the house where the limo had stopped. According to Pendergrast, that would be the location of President Habib's daughter. In other circumstances, Noah would have preferred to make this assault at night, rather than in the middle of the afternoon, but there wasn't time to wait. It was possible, probably even likely, that the Russians would decide to move the girl after this visit from Pendergrast, so Noah had decided to take her immediately.

Each block on the road was approximately a thousand feet long, and while there were a few houses scattered around the one they were crossing, they were far enough away that Noah wasn't concerned about being observed. The two of them moved stealthily through the woods, and finally came to the street that divided one block from another. The house they wanted was across that street, but when they went to cross it they would be completely exposed for a few seconds.

“Boss,” Moose said, “I'm thinking the best way to do this is for you to run across first and hit the ground. If anyone fires on you, I should be able to spot where they're shooting from and take the shooter out.”

“That'll work,” Noah said. “Set yourself in position, and signal me when to go.”

Moose put himself beside a tree and braced the sniper rifle's barrel against it. He leaned left, then right, checking his field of vision, then said, “Go!”

Noah rushed out from behind the trees that were concealing him, and hurried across the road. As soon as he got into the cover of the woods on the other side, he dropped to the ground and watched for any motion in the woods around him.

There was nothing, which surprised him. He had been sure that the Russians would have security in the woods around the house, but it was possible that they were keeping it closer to the building. He held up a hand and hooked a finger at Moose, who came running across the road a second later and dropped down beside him.

“No motion, no activity,” Noah said. “If they got anybody in the woods, they're keeping them close to the house. Let's move, slow and quiet.”

The two men began leapfrogging, with Noah going first and moving forward five yards, then letting Moose pass him by an equal distance. After each dash, they would stop and wait, watching and listening for any activity that might indicate security had seen them.

They reached the point where the house was barely visible through the trees, with Moose in the lead. He stopped and listened, and then suddenly held up a hand to tell Noah to wait. Noah watched as Moose carefully and quietly adjusted his position, and then pointed with two fingers in two different directions.

Looking carefully, Noah saw what Moose was trying to show him. Two men, dressed in camo fatigues, were crouching beside a couple of trees, about fifty feet apart. Each of them held what looked like an HK MP5, and Noah had no doubt they knew how to use their weapons.

Moose held up two fingers, and then made a gun with his hand and dropped the thumb twice, signaling that he was going to take out both of them. Noah stayed put as Moose carefully lined up his shots. The rifle coughed once and the nearest of the two men fell over backward, obviously hit in the forehead. The second man suddenly rose, but he didn't have the sense to duck behind a tree. Moose's rifle coughed again, and that fellow simply dropped where he stood, a large part of his head suddenly missing.

Moose and Noah held their positions for a moment, waiting to see if anyone had realized what had happened. When there was no activity after a few seconds, Noah moved up beside Moose.

“Good shots,” he whispered. “I think we might want to go around the south side of the house, because there might be one or two more of them there. We're far enough from the house with these two to make me think it's worth checking out.”

“Yeah, I get it. You first?”

Noah nodded, then moved off to the left, angling slightly to the west, to position himself to see any activity south of the house. He paused, but when he could sense no one ahead of him, he signaled Moose to make his next move.

Moose ran a crooked path to his next position, and after a moment he signaled Noah to go ahead. Noah rose to his feet and ran quietly past Moose, then dropped to the ground and froze. Twenty yards ahead of him, a third man stood leaning against a tree, his back to Noah.

Noah could see the man's left shoulder and hip, but he didn’t have a clear shot. He glanced over his shoulder at Moose, but the big man’s view of the target was no better. Noah rose silently to his feet again, letting the Uzi hang from the shoulder as he extended the pistol ahead of himself, and walked carefully and quietly toward the security guard.

He had gotten within ten feet of the man when a slight crunch under his feet caused the fellow to turn and look in his direction. Noah squeezed his trigger once, and the man's eyes and nose seemed to blow out the back of his head. He dropped like a stone where he stood, and probably hadn't even had time to realize that he was about to die.

Still standing, Noah looked around and knew that there was no one else in the woods but himself and Moose. He signaled Moose to join him, and began moving toward the house.

The limo was still in the driveway, and the driver was standing beside it. There was unfortunately no way that they could get to the door without being seen by the driver, so Noah pointed at the man and nodded to Moose. A few seconds later, the driver fell prone beside the car, his brain splattered across its windshield.

They burst forward, running straight to the back door of the house, where Noah paused to try the knob. To his surprise, it turned easily, and he yanked the door open and rushed inside with Moose right behind him. The kitchen and living room seemed to be one big common area, and Noah saw several people gathered there. Selah Habib, Jeremy Pendergrast and another man were gathered together in the center of the room, while a woman pointed a camera at them, but two other men were holding MP5s, which they began to raise toward the intruders. Noah fired twice, and both of their heads disintegrated. The girl began to scream, and the woman with the camera simply froze, staring at Noah and Moose with her eyes wide and her mouth open.

“What the hell is this?” Pendergrast demanded, being sure not to show any recognition of the invaders. “Do you have any idea who...”

Noah turned his pistol toward Pendergrast and fired once. The bullet cut a groove along the left side of the man's head and he fell without another word, his eyes rolling back into his head as he lost consciousness. The woman holding the camera finally screamed as Noah grabbed her hair and shoved her into a chair, and the remaining young man simply stood beside Selah, looking calmly and coldly into Noah's eyes as she, whimpering, tried to hide behind him.

“We've come for the girl,” Noah said to him. “You don't have to die, but it's your call.”

“Vasily?” Selah said. “Don't let them take me, I want to stay with you!”

Vasily continued to stare into Noah's eyes, but he spoke over his shoulder to Selah. “I have no choice, my dear,” he said with a distinct Russian accent. “If I try to resist or keep you, he will simply kill me, and take you anyway.” He turned his face back toward Noah. “You work for her father?”

Noah smiled coldly. “You wouldn't even want to know who I work for,” he said. “Just take it as a given that most people don't survive a meeting with me. You can be the exception, and all you have to do is sit down and be quiet.”

Vasily smiled back. “I won't resist you,” he said. “I will tell you this, however—this will not be the last time we meet.”

“For your sake, Vasily, you better hope it is. Next time, you might not have the option of living through it.”