Vektor (16 page)

He’d been able to shoot the two agents in the back alley at point-blank range, from the driver’s side window. He wouldn’t have that kind of luxury with these two, and he needed to hit both of them in rapid succession. He chose the head on the left, since it was already partially obscured by the sedan’s frame. Take the hardest shot first. He braced the suppressor against the building and steadied the green-illuminated crosshairs. Nikolai applied pressure to the trigger as he had been taught many years ago, continuing to focus on the target in the crosshairs. The scope’s point-of-aim and point-of-impact would be the same at this range. Under fifty meters, the subsonic ammo kept a flat trajectory.

The Groza cracked, biting into the concrete as the first projectile raced toward its target. The rear window turned white, obscuring his view of the second target, as the round’s impact with the safety glass caused the entire rear window to shatter in place. He had anticipated this problem. The scope’s field of view allowed him to see most of the second man’s head as he took the first shot, giving him a frame of reference for the blind shooting about to take place. He shifted the scope’s crosshairs from the small hole in the opaque window to the previous location of the second head. He used the crosshair’s mil-dots to measure the shift and pulled the trigger twice. The rest of the window collapsed from the impact of the two rifle rounds. Through the scope, he could see that a third shot would not be necessary. Two large red stains covered the spider-cracked front windshield a few feet apart.

Nikolai glanced around the city street and listened for a few seconds. The rifle’s suppressor had distorted the sound of small arms fire to a low-grade firecracker, which still had the potential to attract significant attention. Nothing. He stared up at the various windows visible from his position. Curtains remained in place and unlit windows stayed dark. Even if anyone had decided to take a look, they would think twice about calling the police. A street shooting usually meant one thing: Russian mafiya. Contacting the police only served one purpose—to identify yourself as a possible witness, and witnesses to mafiya crimes in Russia had a very short life span. For the average citizen, it was better to let the police stumble upon the crime scene.

Satisfied that the shooting had escaped overt attention, he jogged up to the car to confirm his handiwork. A quick look inside verified that his shooting had been accurate. Both bodies were slumped against each other, tangled over the car’s center console. Dark fluid poured out of the gaping holes that once resembled human faces. He started jogging to the side street corner used by the third SVR surveillance vehicle.

“Surveillance team two neutralized,” he whispered.

His throat microphone translated the vibrations from his vocal cords into sound, which was passed on to Klinkman and the driver of his own support vehicle.

“Copy. Team two neutralized. I have the door unlocked. Standing by,” Klinkman replied.

“Breach and remove target. I’m moving to cover the third surveillance team,” Nikolai said.

“Better move fast. I’m going in.”

***

Lucya Pavrikova poured a glass of white wine from an inexpensive bottle she had picked up on her transit home that evening. She’d left at six-thirty, later than most, hoping to get a reprieve from her new shadows. No fewer than two agents followed her wherever she’d go, regardless of the time. At this point, she was afraid to leave her apartment outside of the busy hours in the morning or evening, when the rest of her building’s inhabitants travelled back and forth to work, hopefully deterring a street-side abduction. She knew this was mostly wishful thinking. If the SVR wanted her in custody, they wouldn’t hesitate to take her in the middle of Red Square on May Day. The only place they would avoid for now was the FSB building at Lubyanka Square. She knew they were fishing for leads, overtly sweating everyone possibly connected to the Center for Special Operations at Lubyanka. They hadn’t moved on anyone yet, but the death of several SVR agents guaranteed that the rulebook would be suspended until they discovered the leak. It was only a matter of time before they started rounding them up, and once they disappeared, she didn’t feel hopeful that they’d ever see the light of day again.

She took a long sip of the harsh chardonnay and refilled the glass, deciding to check on her shadows. She walked past the television, briefly blocking her roommate’s view of some mindless reality show based on the lives of several Russian millionaires’ wives.
Dacha Princesses
or something equally inane. Her roommate spent most of the evening brainlessly pining away for the life represented on the show, which aired every weeknight. With over one hundred thousand millionaires in Moscow alone, Katya had yet to score her knight in shining Mercedes. Katya’s concerns paled in comparison to Lucya’s own at the moment, and she prayed that her roommate didn’t feel like small talk tonight. If she was lucky, the television station would rerun last night’s episode immediately following this one, and Katya would be locked into another hour of brain drain. By then, Lucya would be passed out in their shared bedroom.

Lucya pulled back the flimsy curtain covering their living room window and peered five stories down at the crowded street. Through the dark windshield of the familiar black sedan parked below, she caught the faint orange glow of a cigarette, which burned brightly for a second. The car was parked several vehicles away from the nearest streetlamp, swallowed by the darkness which had only minutes ago consumed the city. A faint bluish-red light on the horizon could still be seen between the twisted maze of apartment buildings visible from her window. She hated the night now. Only two days of this shit, and she was afraid to go to sleep. She’d have to drink herself into a semi-stupor to get any sleep at all. She knew there was nothing she could do to stop the agents if they decided to take her, but the thought of them kicking her door in during the middle of the night terrified her.

The reality of her situation still hadn’t fully registered, and she hadn’t really come up with any kind of game plan. Her time at work was too hectic to stop and focus on the situation. CSN had several ongoing operations that required her undivided attention, and her commute was mostly spent looking over her shoulder at the thugs assigned to follow her. Time spent in the apartment had been clouded by a perpetual blood alcohol content that probably disqualified her from microwaving her own dinner. If their tactic was to scare the shit out of her, she had to give them credit.

Her only consolation was that they were also doing this to everyone else in her office. Most of her colleagues didn’t openly discuss it, but a few had opened up to her, figuring that the leak had come from the SVR. This seemed to be the prevailing theory among the agents in her office, but she still sensed the barely palpable tension associated with doubt, which fueled alienation. This was the worst part for her. Aside from a few close friends in her division, everyone at headquarters now avoided her. She was tainted until they figured this out.

She glanced at the sedan one more time, wondering what they would do if she walked down the stairs and offered up Kaparov. Would they be lenient? Her boyfriend didn’t think so. He had cornered her in the stairwell after she cleared security in the morning and started her journey to the fourth floor. Their rendezvous lasted less than a minute, but he had made it clear that selling out Kaparov wouldn’t ease her burden. She’d be tortured mercilessly until they had everything, then she’d be dissolved alive in a tub of acid. She’d suffer immeasurably, and no trace of her body would ever be found. Prerovsky had just as much at stake, so she wasn’t sure if his words were meant to put her situation in perspective or threaten her. Based on his sudden appearance and tone, she tended to believe it was the latter. So much for their relationship.

She decided on another refill, smiling at her roommate, who looked up from the television and almost asked her what was bothering her. She could read it on her face, but something had mercifully dragged her back into the drama unfolding on the screen. Outside of
Dacha Princess
hour, Katya was a compassionate friend and good roommate. Lucya had purposely timed her return to the kitchen to avoid commercials. Her friend would have asked her what was wrong, and she was in no emotional shape to refuse a sympathetic shoulder. She preferred to pass out and wake up to a new day. A day that didn’t include black sedans and serious-looking men following her onto the Metro.

She gripped the wine bottle and prepared to drain its contents into her glass, when the door to her apartment suddenly opened to reveal a dark-haired man wearing black pants and a gray windbreaker.

***

Reinhard Klinkman felt the locking mechanism’s tumbler move and tested the doorknob, which turned freely. Easy enough. He removed a pistol-sized compressed air gun from his backpack and thumbed the safety switch. The gun was loaded with six self-actuating darts. Upon contact, each dart would discharge enough neurotoxin to instantly disable a three-hundred-pound human being, primarily targeting the skeletal muscle system. The toxin affected its target immediately, preventing fine motor skill almost instantly, graduating to full paralysis seconds later.

In this case, he didn’t want to hit the wrong target. Intelligence indicated that Lucya had a roommate who looked remarkably similar. Both had long blond hair, blue eyes and similar builds. The picture provided by their contact wouldn’t help in this situation. He’d have to take his time with this one. He couldn’t afford to carry Lucya down five flights of stairs given their tight timeline. Then again, if Lucya didn’t immediately come to terms with the situation he presented, he’d have to refamiliarize himself with the fireman’s carry. He really hoped she would be reasonable. He tightened the backpack straps and took a deep breath before opening the door.

The scene registered before he physically responded. The woman on the couch glanced in his direction with her mouth open, but made no immediate attempt to get up. The other one reacted without hesitation. She knocked a bottle of wine out of the way to reach for the small knife rack next to the sink. He raised the pistol and fired a single dart at the woman on the couch, freezing the dumb look on her face. By the time he aimed at Lucya, the agent had retrieved a thick handled, five-inch blade from the rack, holding it in front of her in a desperate attempt to establish dominance. He hoped his Russian didn’t leave anything lost in translation.

“Lucya, the darts in this gun work instantly. You wouldn’t get past the kitchen counter. I need to get you out of here right now, so please drop the knife and follow me. My instructions are simple. One way or the other, you leave with me.”

“I won’t tell you anything,” Lucya said, threatening him with the knife.

“I’m not asking any questions. You’re in grave danger, and I have been sent to bring you to a safe place.”

“Who sent you?” she demanded.

“I can’t disclose that. Someone may be listening. I need you to trust me, Lucya. You played and you lost. Your life here is over if you want to stay alive. There’s no other way. If you don’t walk out with me in the next three seconds, we do this the hard way,” Klinkman said.

“Is she all right?” Lucya said, looking at her roommate.

“She’s fine. She’ll wake up within the hour with a nasty headache. Time to go.”

Lucya placed the knife back on the rack and walked forward. “Do I need my purse?”

“No. Lucya Pavrikova no longer exists,” Klinkman said, pulling her through the doorway.

***

Agent Boris Shelepin focused the high-magnification scope and stared through the low-intensity light optics into their target apartment. The Pavrikova woman had just stared down at the surveillance car located on the main street across from her apartment building’s entrance. The sight of the omnipresent car had triggered a long sip from the glass of white wine she had been pouring most of the evening. He wished they had been given a proper surveillance post in one of the surrounding apartments. Pavrikova’s roommate was equally as easy on his eyes, and he wouldn’t have minded getting a better view into their apartment. From the street, their view was limited. They’d parked the van as far down the side street as possible to increase the depth of their view, but he still couldn’t see past the front door, which was located halfway across the cramped common area that served as their kitchen and family room.

He didn’t bother to ask his SVR section head for permission to “requisition” one of the apartments facing Pavrikova’s. His boss had made it clear that his surveillance detail’s purpose was intimidation. They were to maintain an obvious presence in Lucya Pavrikova’s life outside of the FSB’s Lubyanka headquarters.
Physical surveillance
had been the term used by his superiors. Foreign Intelligence Service assets had the rest of Pavrikova covered from an electronic standpoint. Apartment phone. Cell phone. Email. Eavesdropping devices. Remote cameras. All of this would be monitored from a distance. His team would do the grunt work, which suited him fine. He just wished he could get a better view of Pavrikova’s ass, or her roommate’s. Either one would work for him.

He could see the top of her blond ponytail in front of the refrigerator, which meant she would reappear at the window with a refilled wine glass in a minute or two. He lowered the scope and turned to his comrade, who had nodded off in the driver’s seat. He nudged the agent.

“Hang in there a little longer. She’s going to drink herself to sleep at this rate,” Shelepin said.

“We’re headed back when the apartment goes dark?” the driver asked.

“Yeah. We’ll leave the two cars to keep an eye on the exits,” Shelepin said.

In addition to the car parked on the street in front of the apartment, they had another jammed into the tight service alley behind the building. The alley led to a rear service entrance that allowed easy access to the large trash collection bins located in the dingy area off the main stairwell. The doors had been padlocked from the inside since they started Pavrikova’s surveillance, which was standard procedure in many of the apartment buildings. The landlord or building owner would meet the trash removal crew in person and unlock the door, at the same time passing a weekly payment to the crew…most of which would eventually find its way into the hands of the local mafiya. Still, local fire ordinances required two working ground-floor exits, so several of the occupants would have the key to the padlock. They couldn’t risk Lucya being one of them.