The Kremlin Phoenix (18 page)

The intruder stepped lightly onto
the carpet, boosted the image enhancer on his night vision goggles and swept the
big lens back and forth across the room. Not noticing Woods face peering out of
the deep shadows behind the sofa at floor level, he crept toward the open doorway
to his left and peered into the kitchen.

The second man climbed through
the window and moved silently to the right of the stairs, toward the dining
room. He confirmed it was empty, then climbed the polished wooden stairs, expecting
Joan Balard to be asleep in one of the upstairs bedrooms. His companion turned
and followed him up the stairs as the detective crawled out from behind the
sofa.

Woods brought his gun up to fire,
but found the two men had already reached the top of the stairs and had passed
out of sight. He jumped to his feet and hurried after them, climbing the stairs
two at a time in his socks.

* * * *

Unable to sleep, Joan Balard slipped
out of bed to get a glass of water from her en suite. She glanced out of the window,
startled to see a stealthy form sneaking towards the rear of the house. He wore
night vision goggles and carried a mid-sized weapon fitted with an oversized
silencer.

He’s here for me!
she realized with a cold chill.

When the man reached the back
corner, he stopped where he could see the back and side of the house.

What’s he waiting for?
she wondered, then decided to alert Woods

She turned towards her bedroom
door, discovering it was inching slowly open. With her heart pounding, she
crawled under the bed to where her freshly oiled Model 40 shotgun lay. The old
Mossberg had cost her grandfather thirteen dollars back in the nineteen thirties,
and was in as good a condition today as when he’d bought it. Her father had
kept it for sentimental reasons, and she’d done the same, but after the two men
in the Lincoln had come to the house, she’d retrieved it from the attic and
loaded it for the first time in decades. She rested a hand on it as the door
swung open and two pairs of black boots stole soundlessly into her bedroom.

One of the men placed his hand on
the bed sheets.

“Yeshche teplyye,” he whispered
in Russian,
still warm
.

Where’s Detective Woods?
She wondered.
Is he dead?

Joan pulled the cold steel of the
venerable Mossberg toward her. Her shaking hand slid along the gunstock until
her forefinger settled upon the trigger. Silently, she angled the barrel toward
the two intruders as the second man’s boots hurried to the en suite. He pushed
the door open, expecting to catch her inside. When he signaled the en suite was
empty, the first man planted a knee on the carpet and a short barreled sub
machine gun came into view as he knelt down. 

Joan stared at the menacing black
weapon, then the man’s eyes met hers with a satisfied look. She pulled the
trigger and the old Mossberg twenty two roared for the first time in a quarter
of a century. The impact at close range blew the man’s knee apart. He screamed
as he spun around and crashed onto the carpet. Joan started to swivel the
barrel of the antique shotgun toward the second man, but a pair of socked feet
appeared in the doorway before she could bring the weapon around.

Woods fired twice at the man at
Joan’s en suite door, then spun and fired a single shot at his companion who
was writhing on the floor, scrambling to lift his weapon.

“Joan, where are you?” he yelled.

“Under the bed,” she called as
she crawled out with the Mossberg twenty two still firmly clasped in her hands.

“Are you hurt?”

“No,” she said, trying not to
look at the two bodies lying beside her bed.

Woods noticed she was not
affected by gas. “Can you smell anything?”

“The air’s fine.”

Woods pulled the night vision
goggles off the face of the dead man near the en suite, and realized his
mistake. He peeled his gas mask off and dropped it on the floor.

“There’s another one outside,”
she said, trying to stay calm.

A crash from downstairs echoed through
the house as the back door was smashed in. The unsilenced shots from Woods’ gun
and the old Mossberg had signaled the mission was not going as planned.

“Aim that cannon at the door and
blast anything that comes through it,” Woods said as he slipped back out into
the hall, reloading his gun.

He crept back down the hall, crouching
at the top of the stairs and listening for movement. Woods flicked on the light
switch, hoping to blind anyone wearing night vision goggles, but the living
room remained shrouded in darkness.

Realizing they’d cut the power, he
lowered his hand as a single muffled shot shattered the light switch. Woods
jumped up, ran halfway down the stairs and leapt over the banister. As he
dropped to the floor several more silenced shots sounded, one striking the wall
behind him, the other chipping splinters from the stair case.

Woods saw the muzzle flash in the
corner, momentarily illuminating a man wearing night vision goggles. He rolled
as he landed, diving into the dining room in a single fluid motion. Guessing
the third intruder didn’t know the kitchen could be reached from both the
dining room and the lounge room, he scrambled under the dining table as automatic
fire raked the table and chairs, showering splinters all about him. Woods fired
two quick shots to keep his attacker’s head down, then crawled into the laundry.
He got to his feet, crept forward and peered into the kitchen. The back door
was hanging at a crazy angle from a single hinge where it had been kicked it in.

Woods slipped into the kitchen, picked
up a plate, and hurled it like a Frisbee into the living room. The plate smashed
against the far wall, then two muzzle flashes lit up the room, one close on his
left, the other in the far corner, revealing two men, not one!

Woods fired twice at the nearest
target, his muzzle flash illuminating the man, who quickly crumpled to the
floor. He turned toward the far corner and fired again, but the flash of his
gun revealed the corner was already deserted. Knowing he stood exposed, he dived
to the right as the air filled with a stream of whispered flashes from the
stairs. His left shoulder exploded with searing pain as he rolled to his knees,
fired blindly and dived to the floor. Automatic fire shredded two lounge chairs
he used for cover and blew out the window behind him as he crawled to the far
wall.

Got to end this soon!
he thought as his injured arm went numb.

Rapid footsteps sounded as a
shadowy blur moved across the room. Woods raised his thirty eight and fired,
but the hammer clicked hollowly onto an empty chamber. The last of the
intruders heard the click, and immediately charged across the room for the kill
shot. Woods lowered the thirty eight and relaxed against the wall, certain he
was about to die.

A dark form appeared, staring at
him through night vision goggles. Woods appeared to his attacker as a green,
electronically enhanced image lying helplessly against the wall. The man aimed
his weapon at Woods’s head.

This wouldn’t have happened if
Harriman was here!
Woods thought.

There was a thunderous crack as
an old gun fired. Warm, dark fluid sprayed across Woods’ face, then the body
hit him. He blinked the blood from his eyes as he pushed the dead man away. The
large single lens of the man’s night vision goggles’ was cracked, and as the corpse
rolled to the floor, Woods saw a glistening mass of blood and exposed tissue at
the back of the his head.

“Detective, are you down there?” a
frightened voice called from the dark.

Joan Balard stood atop the stairs
in her night gown, the old Mossberg twenty two cradled in her arms, still
smoking.

Valentina reached out her hand through
the fog of sleep and picked up the receiver.”Hello?” she yawned, still tired
after her night flight from London to Moscow.

“Turn on the TV!” Alexander
Karmanov, the head of her SK criminal investigation unit, ordered excitedly.

“Alexander? Do you know how bad
Moscow TV is on a Sunday morning?”

“I know,” Karmanov said urgently.
“Turn it on!”

Grudgingly, she slipped out of
bed and switched on the TV. Ballerina’s from the Bolshoi were performing Swan
Lake. She looked at it bemused. “What channel?”

“All of them!”

Valentina rubbed her eyes as she
switched channels. One had men and women in historic Russian folk dress playing
three stringed balalaikas, several others had orchestral performances and
ballets, including another rendition of Swan Lake.

“Two Swan Lakes?” she wondered
aloud. She knew Russians loved ballet and folk music, but this was ridiculous. “Is
it Tchaikovsky’s birthday?”

“What did the communists do every
time they deposed a leader?” he asked. “They played folk music and ballets! No
news. No bulletins. Nothing that could rouse people’s emotions. All the regular
programs are cancelled and the internet across Russia is down! It’s got to be a
coup!”

“A coup! Not now, not after
everything we’ve been through,” she said, trying to convince herself it couldn’t
be true.

“The phones into the Kremlin are
all down,” Karmanov said. “I can’t contact anyone.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Try to find where Max is! If
they’ve arrested him, it might already be over. If not, we have to protect him.”

She knew Karmanov was right. While
Maxim Gundarovsky, the Prime Minister of the Federation, was free, there would still
be a chance to resist. “Are you going now?”

“Yes. I’ll pick you up in fifteen
minutes.”

* * * *

Corman and Harriman took their seats
in the small conference room at the US Embassy after breakfast. There were
three large screens on one side of the table, for global teleconferencing, but on
this occasion the screens were blank.

Louis Rogers, the Embassy security
chief, opened a folder and glanced at the report it contained. “There are five
safe houses we know of in Moscow. Two appear to be used by protection teams
guarding witnesses against organized crime gangs. We don’t know what’s going on
inside the other three, although one has noise makers and other electronic
defenses fitted, so it’s likely to be a state security facility.”

“Monitor them all,” Corman said.
“The witness protection teams might be a cover story. The other building with
electronic counter measures might be too high profile a facility.”

“We can cover all five,” Rogers
said, “if I pull our teams off other surveillance jobs.”

“Do it. This is our highest
priority.”

“OK. We’ll photograph everyone
who goes in and out of each house. Detective Harriman can review the photos, in
case he can identify the assassin you’re looking for.”

“And if I do make an ID?”
Harriman asked. “Then what?”

Corman rubbed his weary eyes. He’d
slept little since London. “Do you have a team that could terminate their op?”

Rogers looked uncomfortable. “Yes,
but it would burn our best resources. We’d have to get them out of the country
the same day. And there’d be reprisals.”

“Reprisals?” Harriman said
shocked. “What are we talking about?”

“Killing everyone in the building.”
Corman said.

Harriman’s eyes widened
surprised. “Including Balard?”

“The people who have Balard,”
Corman replied, “will put a bullet in his brain rather than let us get our
hands on him, especially as he hasn’t given them the money yet. We’ve been
watching for the transfers – nothing’s gone through. Balard’s held out longer
than I expected. He’s a tough little shit.”

“He’s a US citizen. We should try
to help him.”

Corman and Rogers exchanged
doubtful looks. The expressions on their faces told Harriman neither man
thought there was any chance of rescuing Craig Balard.

* * * *

Alexander Karmanov, Chief Investigator
of the SK’s Criminal Investigation Department’s state crime’s unit, drove towards
Maxim Gundarovsky’s house. Karmanov was in his late thirties, with grey eyes, a
prominent nose and gaunt appearance. He was careful not to show too much
interest in the black van and two cars parked outside the Prime Minister’s
house as they drove past, or the four men who guarded the vehicles.

“They’re not wasting any time,”
Karmanov said as he turned the corner and parked out of sight.

Karmanov, Valentina and a third
SK officer, Kindansky, got out. Moroshkin, the fourth member of their team
who’d flown back from London with Valentina, stayed in the car, replacing
Karmanov behind the wheel. Karmanov had selected his three companions based on
having known them for years. He suspected the Criminal Investigations Department
had been infiltrated, but was certain it wasn’t one of them.