Betrayal (54 page)

He reached up to scratch the tip of his nose before going on.

‘And at that moment, even as your opponent reaches out to seize victory, you strike.’

As usual, Kalyuyev’s car had been brought round to the main entrance in preparation for his departure, the engine ticking over smoothly, the twin exhausts billowing small clouds of steam into the chill December air.

Tossing his coat into the back seat, he gratefully entered the vehicle’s warm interior with the heaters already working hard. Just for a moment, he closed his eyes and let out a faint sigh of relief. Relief mingled with weariness.

It had been a trying couple of days, but it was over now.

Opening his eyes, he reached out and hit the play button on the car’s CD player. But instead of the soothing tones of Beethoven, he instead found himself assailed by the dramatic, intense immolation scene from Wagner’s
Götterdämmerung
.

He frowned, confused. He certainly didn’t recall putting that CD in. Perhaps one of the men charged with moving his car had decided to play a prank on him, or had taken his expensive car for a little cruise while he was working. In either case, he wasn’t amused.

He was just reaching out to eject the disc when suddenly something inexplicable happened. The car’s central-locking system engaged, all four doors clicking shut.

‘What the fuck …?’ he mumbled irritably, pressing the unlock button on his key fob. There was no response. The doors remained locked.

The entire central-locking system must have failed.

Feeling a twinge of unease now, Kalyuyev tried to open the door manually, only to meet with the same result. He was trapped inside his own car. What a ridiculous end to an already difficult couple of days. Now he would have to suffer the indignity of calling for help.

Twisting around in his seat, he reached for his coat and the cellphone he’d left in the inside pocket.

That was when he saw it, gleaming and black on the rear parcel shelf. A small, intricately carved bishop from a chess set.

Suddenly a muted boom shook the car’s chassis from below, startling him. What the hell could have caused that? Had the engine failed as well?

It was only when he smelled smoke that he looked down and saw wisps of it starting to filter through the vents. More of it was drifting by outside his windows, and as he glanced out the windshield, he saw flames licking from beneath the bonnet.

The car was on fire!

Panicking now, he frantically grabbed at the door handle, trying to wrench it open, but still it wouldn’t budge. He tried to hammer on the window, but the toughened glass intended to deflect bullets firmly resisted his efforts.

‘Help!’ he yelled as the first flicker of orange flames began to appear below. The air was thick with acrid smoke now, stinging his eyes and searing his throat. ‘Somebody help!’

He could see movement outside, could see the panicked faces of the men he walked past so nonchalantly every day. He heard the faint thump as they hammered on the windows, trying to break them, trying to reach him.

And all the while, the piercing strains of Wagner’s
Götterdämmerung
continued to resound through the car.

Coughing, trying to draw breath from the searing, choking black smoke now filling the car, he desperately tried to clamber between the front seats, only to find himself stuck there.

The flames were growing fast now, greedily licking upwards to consume the upholstery, the carpets, and the fabric of his trousers.

Blinded by the smoke, and able to hear nothing now but the final tortured strains of Wagner’s last opera, Kalyuyev let out an agonised scream as the flames surged upwards to consume him.

No sooner had Atayev finished speaking than the electronic door buzzed open, signalling a new entry to the interrogation room.

Drake glanced over, wondering if Surovsky had heard enough and ordered Drake removed from the room. To his surprise, however, it was Miranova standing in the doorway.

He hesitated a moment, wondering what she had come to tell him.

But his surprise and curiosity immediately gave way to shocked disbelief as the woman raised her side arm, levelled it at the two agents standing behind Atayev and pulled the trigger.

The first agent went down instantly, the well-aimed round blasting out the back of his head to leave a bloody smear on the white concrete behind. The second barely had time to go for his weapon before a second shot reverberated around the room and he too crumpled and fell.

There are times to think and times to act. Times when even a momentary delay could mean the difference between life and death. This moment was definitely the latter.

Hurling his chair aside, Drake sprang to his feet and rushed at the woman. He had no idea what was going on, but he certainly didn’t intend to become victim number three.

He hadn’t made it more than two steps before Miranova’s weapon swung around to face him.

‘Don’t,’ she hissed, staring at him down the sights, her eyes completely devoid of mercy or compassion. She was a trained killer, a professional operative like himself, and one wrong move on his part was all the justification she needed to pull the trigger.

Skidding to a halt, Drake stared at the woman in disbelief.

‘The other thing you should always remember about chess, Mr Drake,’ Atayev said, having sat calmly through the entire confrontation without even flinching. ‘Even a king can be brought down by a humble pawn.’

Washington, DC, five days earlier

‘I want to go over that revised speech as soon as it’s ready,’ Anton Demochev said, flicking through the incoming messages on his cellphone as he talked. Outside, the rain-lashed buildings of central Washington swept past. ‘We need more emphasis on the fact that this is our initiative.’

Like the vain, egocentric fool that he was, Demochev was relishing the prospect of making the announcement of a joint US–Russian counter-terrorism strategy to the country’s media. No doubt he intended to take most of the credit himself, even though the deal and the bulk of the negotiations over shared intelligence would be handled by far more deserving subordinates.

None of those things concerned Miranova at that moment, however, as she’d just felt her own cellphone vibrating. Quickly reaching for it, she opened the newest message.

As expected, it was simple, direct and to the point.

Now.

Reaching down, she checked her seat belt was firmly in place, took a deep breath and braced herself for what was coming.

It happened fast. A sudden explosion of glass and blood up front announced the impact of the high-powered sniper round, killing the driver instantly.

Such was his complete disbelief at what had just happened, Demochev could muster only a single word. ‘What?’

Miranova said nothing. With no one to direct it, the car slewed sideways on the busy freeway, clipping another vehicle as it went. Miranova stared out through the shattered windscreen as a concrete barrier hurtled towards them. A heartbeat later the car made contact with the solid obstacle in a sickening, crunching, jarring impact that jerked her forwards in her seat with bruising force.

And then, just like that, an unnatural stillness descended on the car, as if a storm had just passed over them. Miranova opened her eyes and looked around. Spots of light were swimming across her vision and the blood pounded in her ears, but she was alive and, as far as she could tell, unharmed.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Demochev gasped, staring around in wide-eyed shock. ‘What the fuck happened? Andre, what’s going on?’

Andre Lagonov, Demochev’s personal assistant, never got a chance to respond. With a crunch of metal, the passenger door beside him was forced open. Lagonov turned just in time to see a silenced pistol thrust through the gap, and jerked violently as a single round entered his forehead.

The door beside Demochev was forced open in similar fashion, only this time a taser was levelled at the car’s occupant. Demochev let out a startled cry as the weapon discharged its payload of several thousand volts, and slumped forwards to curl up in a foetal position in the footwell.

Miranova said nothing while this was happening, and made no move to intervene as the semi-conscious man was dragged from the wrecked vehicle.

She looked up into the gaunt, unsmiling face of Goran, one of Atayev’s hired thugs, then glanced at the automatic he was holding. Supposedly it was loaded with low-powered, soft-lead slugs; the kind that the Kevlar vest she was wearing should easily see off. But she was under no illusions – this was going to hurt.

‘Ready?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘Lower right side. Don’t go for the chest.’

The last thing she needed was to break a couple of ribs.

Without hesitation he took aim and fired a single shot. The impact felt like a cannonball fired straight into her gut, and she buckled forwards, coughing and gasping. She could taste bile in her throat and fought the urge to throw up.

‘You all right?’

‘I’m … fine,’ she managed to say. ‘Help me up.’

She stifled a groan as he hauled her out of the wrecked car and towards the waiting ambulance, having to support the injured woman while she got her breath back. Demochev was already on board and restrained, ready to be ferried to the underground parking lot where they would switch vehicles.

After that, the pain of the crash would be the least of his problems.

Miranova wasn’t looking forward to it much herself. Her part in the charade would require her to be tied, hooded and forced into a hidden compartment within the van they’d be using. It was a task she didn’t relish, but it was necessary if she was to gain the trust of the CIA.

And in the end, the rewards would more than make up for it. Despite the pain, she allowed herself a triumphant smile as she clambered into the ambulance, surveying the once-powerful FSB leader lying curled on the floor.

In the end this would all be worth it.

Drake could summon up no words as he stared at the woman he’d trusted, whom he had thought he knew, and who was now standing with her weapon trained on him. All traces of emotion had left her.

Only now did the full magnitude of his mistake finally settle on him like a crushing weight.

Anika Miranova, who had miraculously survived the attack in DC that had killed all her colleagues; who had conveniently led them out of that storage lock-up mere seconds before it exploded; who had been instrumental in forging a joint investigation between the CIA and the FSB; whose convenient leaps of deduction had led them to Glazov, then to Kalyuyev; who had always provided just enough information to keep them in pursuit of their adversaries while never quite allowing them to gain the upper hand.

‘Once you make your opponent believe that a threat is real, you need only justify that belief. You give up those pieces which are no longer useful, allowing his confidence to grow with each sacrifice, allowing him to come closer and closer to victory while always keeping it just beyond his grasp.’

Miranova, who had survived the shoot-out at the foundry, who had allowed herself to be taken prisoner so she could end up by Drake’s side for the final confrontation with Atayev.

Miranova, who had just killed two of her fellow agents, and was even now working to unlock Atayev’s restraints with one hand while keeping Drake covered with the other.

‘And at that moment, even as your opponent reaches out to seize victory, you strike.’

‘How can you do this?’ Drake spat, his eyes burning with anger and disgust. ‘Killing your own people for this man?’

‘They are not
my people
any more than they are yours, Drake,’ Miranova hit back, showing not a hint of regret for what she had done. ‘Now get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head. Do it now.’

He didn’t doubt she would shoot him dead if he resisted. She was a trained killer, and had already demonstrated her ability with ruthless efficiency. With little choice but to comply, Drake placed his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers, then lowered himself on to his knees.

With a twist of a key, Atayev’s cuffs slipped loose. Rubbing his wrists, he rose up from his chair with unhurried ease and stretched, as if awakening from a deep sleep. He glanced at the pawn still in his hand, smiled in amusement, and laid it carefully back down in the centre of the table.

Frisking one of the dead agents, Miranova withdrew an automatic from his bloodied suit jacket and tossed it to Atayev, then hurried from the room.

At last Atayev’s plan was rendered chillingly obvious. Drake’s capture at the safe house, his escape from the torture chamber and call to Miranova for help, the computer virus attack, the assault on the warehouse and the deaths of Atayev’s men, even the capture of Atayev himself had been nothing but a carefully crafted deception to make them believe Atayev was beaten, that they had won and he had lost.

All of the killings, the sacrifices, the betrayals, all of it planned and executed with absolute precision to bring Atayev to this place, at this moment, with his most hated enemy of all.

The final piece.

The black king.

‘It was all for him, wasn’t it?’ Drake said, hardly believing the scale of their failure to anticipate his plan. ‘Surovsky.’

Atayev nodded. ‘He was untouchable. There was no other way I could get to him.’

‘How did you manage to turn her?’

‘I didn’t,’ Atayev said simply. ‘She joined me willingly, agreed to dedicate her career to finding the truth about Beslan. For four years she has been the perfect FSB agent, working her way up until she was in a position to give me what I needed.’

His queen. The most dangerous and vital piece at his disposal, and nobody had even recognised the threat she posed.

But her ruthless attention was turned elsewhere at that moment, giving Drake a precious few moments in which to act. He eyed the weapon in Atayev’s hands, weighing up his chances of disarming the older man before Miranova returned.