The Hydra Protocol (28 page)

It was Nadia, he realized. She had found another gunman hiding in a pile of tires. The killer brought up his pistol to shoot her, but she was already striking, her hands clenched together for a blow that knocked the pistol right out of the gunman’s grip. He tried to recover, but she was just too fast for him, her knee coming up to catch him in the groin. As he bent forward she struck the back of his neck and put him down.

Behind her, another gunman was climbing up on a rusted water heater, lifting his pistol to aim at her head. She would never see him in time.

Chapel didn’t think about what he did next. He didn’t have time. Roaring like a bull to draw attention, he dashed toward the open front doors of the shed, not even bothering to keep his head down. The gunman who had aimed at Nadia turned a few degrees to the side.

Chapel lifted his rifle and fired a burst into the gunman’s midsection, making him twist and fall backward off the water heater. His pistol spun up into the air.

Nadia darted across the open space in front of the doors and dove for the pistol, sliding across the trash on her side. She didn’t quite catch the gun before it hit the ground, but Chapel could have sworn it was still spinning when she snatched it up.

He started to ask if she was all right, but then she lifted the pistol and pointed it right at him. He ducked to the side, and she fired twice, one shot, a beat, a second shot, neat as that.

Behind him he heard someone gasp in pain. Of course—he’d left two gunmen back there, Glasses and the dark-haired one. Chapel ducked down and turned to look. The dark-haired one was on the ground, clutching a wound on his neck. Blood streamed down his shirt inside his suit jacket.

“There’s another one in there,” Chapel told Nadia.

“I know,” she said. She fired again, but she must not have hit Glasses because she shook her head. “I told you, I am a crap shot.”

Chapel wanted to laugh. He figured the dark-haired gunman would disagree. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the cover of a pile of rotten tires.

“Any more of them out here?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I saw three. All accounted for.”

“You saw three, or there were three?”

Nadia scowled. “There are no guarantees in this life.”

Chapel checked his weapon. There was still half a clip left in the AK-47. “Where’s Bogdan?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I came out to look for him and that is when I saw these men. Jim—he is almost certainly dead, or captured. The latter case is very bad, because—”

Chapel shook his head. “Not now. I can’t think about the future. There’s still at least one guy in that shed with a pistol, not to mention the sniper who took out Varvara’s driver—”

He jumped when he heard a gun go off inside the shed. There was a bloodcurdling scream and then another gunshot, and then nothing. The second shot had stopped the screaming, presumably for good.

“What the . . . was that the sniper?” Chapel asked, even though it was clear Nadia couldn’t answer.

Instead, someone else did. “The marksman is dead,” someone called from inside the shed. “Though he did not die easily. He told me many things first, Mr. Chambers.”

Chapel knew that voice, though it took him a second to be sure of it.

“Mirza?” he shouted, when he’d put it together.

“The very same. I am going to come out now. Please hold your fire. We have matters to discuss.”

Chapel pointed his rifle at the doors of the shed. Nadia lifted her pistol.

The SNB man walked out into the light. He wore a thin Windbreaker over his button-down shirt. His mustache was as neatly combed as ever, and his head shone like a cue ball in the sunlight. He was smiling. He also held a boxy machine pistol in his hands, the barrel of it pointed at them.

Chapel could have taken him out then and there, but there was no guarantee Mirza wouldn’t shoot back at the same time. The machine pistol was more than capable of killing both Chapel and Nadia before Mirza died. It looked like a stalemate.

“I have taken care of a problem for you, Mister Chambers,” Mirza said. “The fellow back there with the spectacles will not bother you again.”

“These guys weren’t working for you?” Chapel asked.

“Indeed, no,” Mirza said. “May I approach you, do you think?”

“You’re fine right there.” Chapel wanted to look over at Nadia, see if she could make any sense out of this. He had no idea what his next move should be. “I will say thanks. These assholes were following us for a while.”

“Yes,” Mirza confirmed. “They arrived in Tashkent last night. When I learned they were looking for you, I followed them all the way here. Just one of the many ways I have sought to be useful to you, Mr. Chambers. I think perhaps it is time you reciprocated. Perhaps by putting down your weapon.”

“Sure,” Chapel said. “Just let me make sure of a couple of things first. These guys were Romanian gangsters, looking for my computer geek. You seen him around here anywhere?”

Mirza laughed. “Do you know the most difficult part of my job, Mister Chambers? People give me false information all the time. The difficult part is knowing when people are simply ignorant, or mistaken, or when they are intentionally lying. These men were not Romanian.”

“They weren’t?” Chapel asked.

“Ah, that sounds like a man who has been misinformed. No. They were Russians. And they were not looking for your computer specialist. They were looking for Nadia Asimova.”

“They . . . what?” Chapel asked.

“Oh, did you think her name was actually Svetlana Shulkina? You see how difficult it becomes when people lie to us? I really think it is time for us to talk man-to-man. So put down your weapons, please.”

“And what happens then?” Chapel asked, though mostly just to stall for time to think. Mirza had blown Nadia’s cover but far worse than that—the gunmen were Russians, and they were chasing Nadia, which meant . . .

“You and I will return to Tashkent. You will explain to me how you came to be involved with a Russian criminal. Not that I particularly care—however, it will be useful information when I negotiate with your company. I will schedule meetings with the top men in the Interior Ministry. You and I will find a way for your company to work with Uzbekistan.”

“You’re going to blackmail me into making a bad deal, huh?” Apparently Mirza still thought he was Jeff Chambers, energy executive. So part of the cover story remained intact.

“You’ll still make money here, Chambers,” Mirza said. “But perhaps you will not rob my country as mercilessly as you’d hoped.”

Chapel shook his head. “What about my assistant?”

“Asimova? Well.” He shrugged, though not so much that his aim wavered. “I will kill her, of course. She is wanted alive or dead, and she has already shown she is a fighter. She will be much easier to ship home in a crate.”

Chapel didn’t even need to think about the deal. “It’s not going to happen, Mirza. Put down
your
gun, and we’ll talk about what happens next.”

Mirza didn’t flinch. “That would seem foolish. There would be no reason for Asimova not to shoot me, then.”

Chapel sighed in frustration. “We all need to calm down and think. We need to find a way to make sure nobody gets shot.”

“Are you sleeping with her, Mr. Chambers? Has she seduced you? I think you are not realizing that this is a rescue mission. I am here to protect you from her, first and foremost. I have also protected you from the Russian spies who were sent to retrieve her. I assure you, they had orders to kill you as well. Their plan was to have their sniper pick the two of you off. When that did not happen—thanks to me, alone—they stormed into this place to finish the job. I admire your ability to survive that attack, but you could not have done so without my help. I am your only friend here, Mr. Chambers, whether you believe it or not.”

Chapel frowned in thought. “If she puts down her weapon—”

“This is not a matter for discussion,” Mirza said.

“Goddamnit, it is! This is your only chance of getting out of here alive, Mirza,” Chapel said.

Nadia did not turn away from the SNB man as she spoke. She was too smart to drop her guard even for an instant. “Jeff,” she said, because apparently she’d figured out as well that his cover wasn’t compromised, “this man is a
butcher
. He works for a government that routinely slaughters its own people, just to maintain political control—”

“I’m not going to kill a man in cold blood,” Chapel told her. “I don’t care if he deserves it or not. Put down your gun.”

She stared at him with questioning eyes. She was trying to decide, he thought, if he was speaking truthfully—or if he only intended to disarm Mirza so that he could be killed safely.

It was the kind of business they were in, where that kind of moral calculus was acceptable. Chapel had no doubt that if Rupert Hollingshead were there just then, the old man would advise him that killing Mirza was the only way forward.

But Hollingshead wasn’t there. And despite what people consistently seemed to believe, Jim Chapel was no murderer. He killed only in self-defense.

Eventually, Nadia dropped her pistol and raised her hands above her head. She was trusting him to do the right thing here.

Even if her definition of the right thing and his were different.

“Now. Mirza. You saved my life, and maybe what you’re saying about Svetlana is true,” Chapel said. “If you want to save anything out of this mess, you’ll put your gun down, as well.”

The SNB man inhaled sharply. Then he dropped the machine pistol.

“All right,” Chapel said, and he nodded slowly. “Now I’m going to tell you how this ends. She and I are going to get into that truck, and we’re going to drive away. You won’t follow us.” He couldn’t read Mirza’s face. He knew he couldn’t trust the man. But he had to move forward. “You’re not going to report any of this to your superiors. We’re going to drive to Afghanistan, we’re going to leave your country as quickly as possible, and we’re never coming back. Do you understand?”

Mirza smiled. It was not a warm smile. “I understand that you believe this will happen,” he said.

“He’ll hound us,” Nadia protested. “He’ll send an army after us—Jeff—”

“I’m giving you a chance, Mirza,” Chapel said. “A chance to—”

He stopped in midsentence because he’d heard something. Someone was moving around back in the shed, back near the truck. But there wasn’t supposed to be anyone still alive back there—all four of the Russians were dead, there was no one—

Time slowed, then, as things happened very fast.

Mirza started turning, his eyes still locked on Chapel and his AK-47. His hands lifted, as if he were reaching for another weapon, or as if he wanted to surrender. Chapel would never know which.

Because suddenly Bogdan was standing in the doors of the shed, an assault rifle gripped in both of his skinny hands. His hair had blown back and his eyes were very wide, as was his mouth, showing bared teeth. The depressive hacker was gone, replaced by some vicious Romanian monster out of legend as he squeezed his trigger and fired thirty rounds on full automatic, the bullets tearing Mirza’s chest to ribbons.

The SNB man didn’t even have time to look surprised.

“Oh crap,” Chapel said, staring at what remained of Jamshid Mirza.

Nadia, without a word, bent down and picked up her pistol again.

“What?” Bogdan asked.

The hacker’s face had relaxed again, now that his enemy was dead. His bangs fell back down over his eyes, and other than the fact he was still holding an assault rifle, he looked exactly as he always had.

“Something is wrong?” he said.

“Where were you?” Nadia asked. “I went looking for you.”

“I hear people come, so I hide,” Bogdan said. He lifted his shoulders and let them sag again. “In the chicken coops, yes? Then I see men coming, with weapons, I think I am dead. The American killed those men, and later, the Uzbek killed another one. But he is our enemy, so I went in truck and found guns and kill him.”

“That . . . makes sense,” Nadia said.

“Was right thing to do, yes? He is our enemy?”

“He . . . was,” Nadia agreed. “Jim?”

Chapel wanted very much to sit down. He wanted time to figure out what had happened and where everything went wrong.

Sometimes in life you don’t get what you want.

“Okay,” he said. “We need to . . . we have to . . .”

There was a course forward, a series of steps he could take that would get them out of there and to a place of safety. He was getting stuck, though, on the first step. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t—“We need to hide these bodies,” he said. Because that had to be the first thing they did.

His moment of doubt passed. One of the most useful things the army had ever taught him was that motion and activity were a passable substitute for a rational plan. “It may already be too late. Maybe someone in one of the buildings nearby heard something. Maybe they’ll come to look. Maybe they’ll find Mirza and report his death, and his friends in the SNB will know he was assigned to watch us. I’m sure he told them where he was headed, he would be a fool not to leave word with somebody that he was coming here, and Mirza didn’t seem like a fool.”

“He fell for your cover story,” Nadia pointed out.

“The cover was solid. Yours, on the other hand—”

That was a whole other kettle of fish. He hadn’t even begun to process what Mirza had said about Nadia. That she was wanted by the Russian government. That the blond thugs had not, in fact, been Romanian gangsters looking for Bogdan but Russian security men sent to kill
her
.

If he started down that path, he was going to have to question all kinds of things that so far he had comfortably taken for granted.

Later
, he told himself.

“Never mind. Help me with these bodies. Bogdan, see if you can find a tarp or something. A sheet, a cloth, plastic—it doesn’t matter. We need to hide this mess as best we can and be out of here as soon as damned possible.”

He realized he was babbling, that he was talking more than he was thinking, but he didn’t care. He started hauling bodies around, then, and talking through the process helped him not think too much about what he was doing, about what he’d already done to the dead men. With Nadia’s help he got them inside the shed, where at least they wouldn’t be seen from the street. Bogdan found some old stained blankets in the pile of trash that filled the lot, and Chapel covered the bodies because that seemed more respectful than just letting them lie there on the dirty shed floor.