Vektor (39 page)

“Stick the finger in one of the bullet wounds,” Grisha said.

Farrington could hear Seva’s footsteps in the hallway outside of the room.

“That might work, but we’ll have to clean it again,” Farrington said.

“You could stick it in your mouth,” Grisha replied.

“To clean it?”

“No. To warm it up.”

Farrington stared at Grisha for a moment, unable to come up with any reason why he shouldn’t stick Belyakov’s index finger in his mouth. He really wanted to come up with one. Without hesitating another moment, he grimaced and inserted the finger in his mouth, fighting back an incredible urge to vomit.

“I hope this works. I don’t want this to be one of my last images of you,” Grisha said.

Farrington managed to mumble a few obscenities, just before Seva entered the door a few seconds later, out of breath.

“Good thing he didn’t suggest sticking it somewhere else,” Seva said.

“That might work too,” Grisha added.

Farrington removed the finger, spitting in disgust, and placed it against the scanner glass. Nothing happened for a few moments, and Farrington started to shake his head. Suddenly, the screen turned green and flashed, “Access Granted. Welcome back, Dr. Belyakov.” He turned to the two operatives.

“Fuck both of you,” Farrington said.

“Seva, remove Belyakov’s right hand with the hatchet in your pack and deliver it to Misha. We shouldn’t be more than a minute or two behind you.”

***

Misha heard Yuri over the net, but was far from celebrating their success with anything beyond a subtle smirk. The Quick Reaction force had pulled into the parking lot earlier than expected, and caught him getting out of the driver’s seat of the SUV. They pulled up ten meters away, perpendicular to the SUV, and switched to high beams. He could barely see them as they climbed out of the car. His only confirmation that all four had exited came from the sound of four separate doors slamming shut. He glanced up at the main entrance to Vektor, but saw nothing that gave him any hope that he would survive this encounter. He carried a suppressed pistol behind his back, tucked into his pants, but had no chance of successfully taking down four trained men that he couldn’t see. If they asked him to turn around, he was screwed.

“What the fuck are you doing out here? We have a situation. Didn’t they call you?” one of the guards demanded.

He had already planned his response. “They did, but I wanted to get something out of my car before this place turned into a madhouse.”

“Are you out of your mind? Wait a minute. How did you get a car onto the campus? None of us are allowed to drive inside,” the guard said, stepping forward far enough for Misha to see him.

The sight of full body armor, ballistic helmet included, was not an encouraging sight. Neither was the shortened AKS-74U, fitted with a reflex sight, slung across his chest in a ready position. Misha’s pistol might buy him enough time to get behind the SUV, but that would be the full extent of its usefulness. He hoped someone was listening to his one-way conversation and had figured out a plan to neutralize the situation quietly. He decided to continue with his ruse, stalling for a miracle.

“All right. It’s not my car. My girlfriend works in building one as a lab assistant. That’s how I got this job. She wanted to come by. This is her car,” Misha said.

“And she’s inside? What did you forget, condoms?”

“Nothing ever happens on this shift,” Misha said.

“Well, you picked the wrong night for this shit. I’m going to make sure both of you lose your jobs. Get back inside the building.”

The lead guard turned and yelled to one of his men, “Call this in, and check out the SUV.”

Misha stepped sideways out of the glaring light, careful not to expose his pistol. Now he could see the entire group. One of the guards on the far side of the white four-wheel drive security jeep walked toward the SUV, while the others started walking to the Virology compound entrance. The lead guard stopped and stared at him incredulously.

“Are you going to stand there all night? Let’s go. Open the door.”

He had stalled the inevitable as long as possible. Where the hell was Sasha? As if on cue, a voice spoke up in his earpiece. “Take the guard talking to you first, then the one by the SUV…on three, two…”

“I’m talking to you!” the guard yelled.

“One,” Misha said, reaching behind his back with blinding speed.

The guard failed to react as Misha fired three hollow-point 9mm projectiles at his indignant face. Two of the rounds struck less than a centimeter above the lip of his ballistic helmet, deflecting into the night sky. The third struck the bridge of his nose, dropping him like a rag doll onto the dark pavement. He swung the semi-automatic pistol in the direction of the guard walking toward the SUV and concentrated his fire on a point high on the distant man’s torso. As the rounds started to strike his intended target, he was vaguely aware that the other two guards had fallen like the first.

The jacketed hollow-point ammunition in his Russian-made GSh-18 pistol had no chance of penetrating the guard’s body armor, so he went with a different strategy. Saturation and shock. The GSh-18’s magazines held eighteen rounds, which he used to pummel the man while advancing close enough to deliver a coup de grâce. The guard stumbled backward, trying desperately to remain standing, but unable to withstand the pain and kinetic energy imparted by a maelstrom of copper-lined, lead-core projectiles striking his chest and arms at 1,750 feet per second. Misha reserved the two remaining rounds and calmly approached the downed guard.

“Please. Don’t kill me. This is just a job. I have a family. Three kids. Don’t do this,” the guard sputtered, unable to raise his shattered arms.

Misha considered his words for a brief moment and fired the last two rounds at point blank range into the pavement next to his head. He had no doubt whatsoever that this man would have gutted him if the tables were turned, but there was no reason to execute him. He was unaware of the bioweapons program hidden in the basement of Building Six, and judging by his wounds, he posed no threat to the team. The man stared up at him, unable to respond. Misha kneeled next to the man and rolled him onto his side. He ripped his P25 radio out of its holder on the backside of his ballistic vest and yanked out the coil cord connected to the man’s shoulder microphone. He rolled the guard onto his stomach and turned to face the main entrance. Gosha stood in the open doorway, covering the parking lot with Misha’s suppressed PP2000. Sasha was running across the pavement, headed in his direction.

“I need the keys. We’re almost out of here,” Sasha said.

“Where were you?” Misha said.

“Gosha had it under control by the time I arrived. You were in good hands the whole time,” Sasha said, catching the keys thrown at him.

Misha jogged to the doorway, anxious to finish the job at Vektor. The suppressed weapons had created an unmistakable racket across the quiet campus, certain to attract any nearby roving patrol.

“Look who’s back from the dead,” Misha said, punching Gosha in the shoulder.

“Just in time to save your ass. What were you doing out there?” Gosha said.

“Rolling up the windows you left down.”

“I didn’t have the keys,” Gosha replied.

They were interrupted by Seva, who stood at the security counter holding a severed hand at arm’s length away from his body.

“Ladies, I don’t mean to interrupt, but I have a special delivery,” he said, slapping the hand on the counter.

Misha rushed to the counter and grabbed the hand, which felt like a slab of meat in his grip. He handed the P25 radio to Seva, who accepted it reluctantly.

“Press the transmit button to hot mic the system. It’ll give us a few minutes of confusion on their end. Just don’t give away any operational details while you’re transmitting.”

“No shit,” Seva said.

“Yuri, where are you?” Misha said, heading to the secure vault behind the counter.

“Thirty seconds from your location. Go ahead and activate the system. Get everyone else into the car. Welcome back, Gosha,” Yuri said.

“Glad to be back.”

***

Less than five hundred yards away, behind Building Six, a pair of security guards doused their flashlights and crouched.

“You hear that?” one of them said.

“Barely. Sounded like suppressed semi-automatic fire. Definitely something,” the guard to his right replied.

He agreed. The gunfight lasted fewer than three seconds, ending with two distinct snaps. He couldn’t get a directional bearing, since the sounds were so faint, but there was no doubt in his mind.

“I’m calling it in. Watch our six,” he said.

While his partner backed up against the building and turned to face the way they had just come, Mikhail Blok whispered into his shoulder mic.

“Raven’s Nest, this is Raven Three-One. I report shots fired in the vicinity of the Virology compound. I say again. Shots fired in the vicinity of the Virology compound.”

He waited for several seconds, scanning the darkness over his rifle.

“No reply,” he whispered.

“Check the radio,” his partner replied.

Blok knew the radio worked. He had tested it with base and the other teams standing in the QRS ready bay. He checked anyway and quickly discovered the problem.

“Motherfucker. Hot mic,” he said.

“This is screwed, man. We’re too exposed out here,” his partner said.

“Hold on a second. You know what I just realized?” he whispered.

“What?”

“The motion lights should have lit us up when we came around the back of the building,” he said.

“Fuck. We need to get out of here. Right now.”

Blok reactivated his LED flashlight and swept the beam along the perimeter fence thirty meters away.

“What the fuck are you doing? Turn the fucking light off,” the other guard hissed.

“I’m looking for a breach. That’s why the lights are out.”

Bathed in 900 lumens of light, the contrast in color between the chain link material and the plastic zip ties was noticeable to the trained eye. He quickly found the L-shaped pattern in the fence.

“Right there. See the outline of the cut?”

“Yeah. Now turn off the fucking light.”

“I need you to verify the breach while I activate the emergency broadcast on this radio,” Blok said.

“To hell with the radio. You cover me until I’m back,” he said.

“All right,” he said and slapped his partner on the back.

The slap catalyzed the guard, who sprinted across the open area and paused at the fence area in question. Blok felt a slight rumble vibrate from the building, which he first mistook for an explosion somewhere on the Vektor campus. The other guard stopped examining the fence and started to sprint back.

What Blok saw next would stay with him for the rest of his life. Yevgeny Gribov disappeared in a thick plume of blue flame that reached forty feet into the sky, instantly super heating the air around him. He could see three more plumes spread out along the back of Building Six in his peripheral vision, but his vision was fixed to the blue shaft of flame that had entombed Gribov less than twenty meters in front of him. Frozen in terror, Blok watched the outline of his body change shape, shrinking and twisting.

Ten seconds later, the blue plume was replaced by a puffy white explosion that launched the incinerated guard’s body twenty feet in an arc through the air. As the ash particles floated down around Blok like delicate snowflakes, Gribov’s scorched, sizzling remains crashed to the ground less than three meters away, causing him to recoil in terror. His eyes met the hollow, black sockets of Gribov’s skull for a brief second, causing him to flee. He hugged the building wall the entire way, not wanting to suffer the same fate as his friend.

***

Farrington caught sight of the blue plumes from the parking lot, unwilling to leave until he confirmed that the system described by Reznikov had worked. The propane-fueled shafts of fire illuminated the parking lot, bathing them in an eerie cerulean blue glow.

“Holy mother,” he muttered, hopping into the front passenger seat.

Sasha had started backing the vehicle as soon as Farrington’s feet cleared the pavement, throwing him forward into the glove box.

“Sorry. We need to get out of here. Hang on,” Sasha said, turning the SUV sharply in reverse.

The maneuver would have tossed him out of the open door if he hadn’t heeded the warning. Instead, he found himself braced against the doorframe, anticipating Sasha’s next move. At this point, they needed to move forward as fast as the vehicle would take them. Farrington centered his body on the car seat just in time to avoid whiplash as the SUV lurched forward toward the main gate.

“Guards at the gate!” Sasha yelled.

Everyone reacted at once, extending the barrels of their weapons through the open windows. Farrington reached between his legs and retrieved his PP2000 submachine gun, getting it out of the window in time to join the rest of his team in the slaughter. At a range of fifty meters, Gosha started firing short bursts from the rear passenger side window with his AK-107U assault rifle, scoring immediate hits on the guards. Farrington fired a sustained volley of armor-piercing 9mm projectiles, adding to the carnage as they closed the distance. By the time they pulled to a stop at the motion-activated gate, the three heavily armed security contractors had stopped moving, their bodies contorted in positions of agony along the checkpoint.

“I don’t see anyone in pursuit!” Seva yelled from the rear cargo compartment.

“Roger. Head to the first switch-out point.”

Sasha lowered the night vision goggles strapped to his head and drove for several seconds before making a sharp left turn onto an unmarked jeep trail fifty meters along the access road. The trail’s entrance had been marked earlier that evening with two infrared glow sticks visible only to night vision. They would travel along the dirt path for two kilometers, emptying onto an improvised road south of Vektor, where they would find their first cache of vehicles and equipment. The detour took them away from Koltsovo in an unexpected direction that would hopefully provide enough of a head start to arrive at their second cache undetected.