The Norse Directive (15 page)

An awkward silence hung in the cabin of the SUV for a moment. Then it erupted in laughter.

Jim tried to keep a straight face, but eventually succumbed to the hilarity of his own joke. When the laughter died down, he turned serious again. “It sounds like you all have run into a bit of a problem with this Russian bloke.”

Understatement of the month
, Sean thought.

“Do you have any idea who he is or who he works for?” Jim continued.

Sean reached back into his pocket and saw he had received a text message from Emily during the melee.
Urgent
.
Check your email.

Emily Starks and Sean had worked together for Axis on a number of projects and missions. She never overreacted to anything. So when she used the word
urgent
in her text message, he knew that there was something serious he needed to look at.

“Looks like we might,” Sean answered Jim’s question.

He opened the email app on his phone and tapped on the new message from Emily. He looked at the image of the Russian and read the file rapidly. Next, he scanned through the information on the other guys. There wasn’t much on them. It seemed they were peripheral characters, most likely hired guns the Russian brought in to be a part of his unit.

Sean scrolled back to the top and stared at the lifeless eyes of the man who’d been pursuing them. “His name is Nicholas Petrov. He’s former Russian military, special operations division. Seems he made a name for himself as being the go-to guy for things no one else wanted to do.”

“Like dangerous missions?” Tommy wondered out loud.

“And then some. Looks like he did the dirty work for the army: torture, execution of prisoners, you name it. Then he went rogue. Was dismissed from the military for insubordination. After he left the Russian army, Petrov decided to sell his talents to the highest bidder.”

Adriana listened carefully. “A mercenary.”

“Appears so,” Sean nodded. “He’s had over sixty confirmed kills in the line of duty, and that doesn’t include his private body of work. From what Emily says, Petrov is ruthless and will stop at nothing to finish whatever mission he’s on.”

Jim had been following along quietly as he drove the SUV through another village. “So that guy is after you? Sounds like you need to pick a safer, more lucrative line of work.”

“Believe me,” Sean quipped, “I’ve tried.”

He flipped back through Petrov’s file one last time. “There’s nothing here on who he’s working for. Not surprising. The guys with the finances typically try to stay in the shadows. Sometimes you never know who is pulling the strings. The dossier says he’s had connections in France though. Might be a lead we could tug at.”

Jim’s face curled with discomfort, as if he were trying to hold down a huge secret.

“You okay, Jim?” Tommy asked, noticing the man’s obvious state of unrest.

“Aye, I’m fine. It’s just that I might have someone who could help.”

The three passengers simultaneously raised their eyebrows at the revelation.

“Help with what part?” Sean asked, his curiosity aroused.

“I wasn’t always a corporate driver. I’ve got a few friends that one might say are a little less than on the level.” He hesitated, unsure if he should keep talking. “I’ve got a connection in France that does a little, how should I say, entrepreneurial work. Nothing terrible. He just runs a few hundred kilos of marijuana into the country every year.”

“I’m sorry,” Tommy stopped him. “Did you just say a few hundred kilos?”

“Yeah,” Jim snickered. “I guess it’s not a small operation.”

“That just took the previous understatement’s place,” Sean commented coolly.

“Anyway, he knows a lot of black market types. Doesn’t usually collaborate much with them since he’s sort of got his market cornered. But he still hears things from time to time. I can give him a call if you’d like.”

“Do it,” Sean directed. “I have a feeling we’re going to need all the help we can get, from whoever is willing to give it.”

Southampton, England

The door budged but wouldn’t open. Petrov hit it again, leaning into it with his shoulder, but he still couldn’t push through. Through the crack near the doorframe, Petrov saw the feet of the man who’d been helping him. That meant Wyatt had either killed him or knocked him out and used the body to blockade the door.

Smart
.

Petrov wondered if he would have thought of the same thing.

A voice yelled out, muffled by the thick wooden door. “Don’t try to resist. Drop your weapon. We have you surrounded.”

The police. Great.

Petrov had gambled, taking a shot at the cop on the roof of the old castle gate. He typically didn’t miss, but the span between him and the target was farther than optimal. His employer had told Petrov to follow Wyatt and his companions and wait to strike when they’d retrieved the second coin. He wasn’t sure they had it, but he knew that his quarry had discovered something inside the bell atop the barbican. The only assumption he could make was that they’d found the coin.

If he were wrong, he’d sort it out one way or the other when his targets were dead.

Now they’d got away though, he had no idea how they’d got past his man. Fortunately, he had two more waiting. After shooting one of his team on the street in Atlanta, he found a replacement in London who suited his needs – and at the price Petrov was willing to pay.

He turned away from the door and pumped his legs hard, running up the steps two and three at a time. When he reached the rooftop door, he fished his phone out of a pocket and hit the number on the screen. A man with a Cockney accent answered after only one ring.

“Cops are on their way.”

Petrov could hear the sirens in the distance. When he opened the door, the sound grew exponentially louder. The cop downstairs had been bluffing. Petrov wasn’t surrounded, not yet anyway. But if he stuck around another two minutes, he would be.

“Did you get the boat?” he asked, crouching low as he moved toward the other end of the walkway.

“It took a bit of doin’ on such short notice, but it’s ready and running. Pier 3. Look for a small fishing boat with a blue hull and a white pilothouse.”

“Untie, and be ready to go.”

He hit the end button and slid the phone back in his pocket. Scaling the north-facing side of Bargate would draw too much attention from gawking onlookers, making his escape nearly impossible. Not to mention the police would likely come in from that direction. Petrov’s only option was to go down the side. Falling would surely break a bone or two, and result in his capture. Petrov did not intend to let that happen.

He flung his legs over the edge of the wall and grabbed onto the bottom corner of a rampart. His feet wiggled around, desperately trying to find a ledge wide enough to hold. The right foot came to rest on a flat surface no more than two inches across, but it was enough. Petrov lowered himself cautiously, making sure the tiny ledge would support his weight. His left foot found another groove, and he jammed the toe of his boot into it. Next, he reached down with his left hand and found a lip between two stones that had worn away over time. It was smoother than he would have liked, but fortunately, years of training and hard work had made his fingers as strong as a sailor’s.

Petrov repeated the process as fast as he could, wary that a wrong move could result in catastrophe. While it seemed to take ten minutes, he managed to climb down the side of the wall in less than thirty seconds. When he reached a point about seven feet high, he dropped to the ground and rolled to his feet, taking off at a dead sprint toward an offshoot street that led to the wharf.

In the background, sirens blared, the irritating noise echoing through the short canyon of storefronts and pubs. The sound got progressively louder as he took a left down an alley. He skidded to a sudden stop, nearly running straight into a police officer.

They’d cut off Petrov’s rear exit.

“Hold it right there,” the officer commanded.

This man was much younger than the cop Petrov had seen on the top of Bargate. While that could make things slightly more difficult in a fistfight, Petrov found that inexperience often crippled men of that age. He took a wary step forward, keeping his hands in front of him, palms facing out.

“I don’t want any trouble with you,” Petrov’s voice carried smoothly through the alleyway.

“Don’t move!” the young cop yelled. He removed a Taser from its holster and held it out at arm’s length.

Petrov tilted his head to the side, as if amused by the nonlethal weapon. He took another step forward. “I’m telling you, I’m not the one you are looking for. I heard shooting up near the castle wall, and I panicked.”

The policeman faltered for a second, slightly lowering the weapon. “Stay back,” he ordered. “We were told to secure the area.”

“I understand.” Petrov continued to speak in a calming tone. “You’re just doing your job. And I am in no mood to be electrocuted today.”

The cop lowered his weapon farther, disarmed by the convincing story. Suddenly, his radio crackled. The voice on the other end gave the description of the muscular Russian, almost to a T. The realization hit the young officer too late as he tried to raise his arm holding the Taser.

Petrov was too close now and lunged at the cop. He grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him forward, using body momentum to jerk the arm over his shoulder and snap it down. The joint cracked at the elbow, and the cop let out a scream that would have put a young schoolgirl to shame.

The weapon clacked on the asphalt. Petrov kicked the man in the back, sending him sprawling with his broken arm. The Russian then picked up the weapon and fired the leads into the policeman’s back, the officer’s body gyrating as the voltage pumped through him.

Petrov dropped the weapon and took off again, headed to the end of the alley. As he reached the end of the thoroughfare, another policeman stepped around the corner. His face barely had time to react with shock before Petrov smashed the man’s larynx with his forearm, never losing speed as he did so. He didn’t look back to see the cop drop to his knees, grasping at his throat.

He turned right and pushed ahead, down a slight hill toward the pier. The one in front of him was marked
Pier 7.
His man had said to look for the number 3, a blue hull.

Reaching the dock, Petrov paused for a second to look down the gangway. To the left, the numbers went up. He took off to the right, still running hard despite his thighs burning from the exertion. Dark clouds rolled across the sky from the west, spitting sprinkles of rain down onto the dock. Ahead on his left, Petrov saw the blue-and-white fishing boat, along with his two men hurriedly preparing to leave. He cut left down pier 3 and forced himself to sprint the last thirty yards to the boat. The sirens blared from the town behind him, just over the rise.

Petrov leaped over the edge of the vessel and onto the deck. The thing was little more than a small whaleboat, but it would do. If the police were clever enough to check the wharf, they would blend in with all the other boats, especially considering several were making their way out to sea. He scurried into the pilothouse. One of his men was at the helm, awaiting orders.

“Let’s go,” Petrov ordered as he tucked behind the rear wall of the pilothouse.

The man at the helm eased the throttle forward. The engine grumbled underneath the deck. The water foamed and gurgled as the little vessel started inching its way forward. It felt like an eternity to reach the end of the pier, but when they did, the pilot steered the boat into line with three others that were heading out to sea. The single windshield wiper thumped quietly, working hard against the falling rain.

Petrov risked a glance back at land. He made out a few shapes of uniformed officers scouring the hillside and the periphery of the docks, but pursuit never came.

He sat down on a wooden bench affixed to the wall and leaned back for a few seconds. His legs still burned, but he didn’t complain. The other member of his team worked busily on the main deck, pretending to be preparing nets and lines. Only an acutely trained eye would realize the man had no idea what he was doing.

Once Petrov caught his breath, he addressed the pilot. “We’ll need to get back to land quickly.”

“Were you able to get what you came for?” the pilot asked in an American accent.

Petrov shook his head, staring forward through the windshield. The breakwater appeared off to port and open water beyond the bay. “No. They got away with it.”

“Any idea where they might be headed?”

“Not yet. But their car was rented from a company in London that uses antitheft tracking systems.”

The pilot knew what he was getting at. “Perfect. I should be able to hack that without much trouble.”

“Good.” Petrov stood up and looked back again at the diminishing wharf. Off to starboard, beyond the breakwater, a solitary pier jutted out from the rocky shore. He pointed at the protruding structure. “Let me take the helm. We’ll head for that pier. We can get back on land from there. You have your laptop with you?”

“I never leave home without it,” the American mercenary said with a sly grin.

Petrov stepped to the oversized wheel and took over. “Find out where they are going.”

The man obeyed and opened his laptop. The screen blinked to life, and he connected a smartphone to the USB port to provide hotspot Internet access. “Where are we going to get another car once we’re back on land?” the American asked, never looking up from his screen.

“You let me worry about that.”