Rasputin's Shadow (33 page)

I
couldn’t believe it.

An anonymous tip.

A warehouse out in Jamaica.

Larisa could see something major was going down.

“What?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

I told Aparo I’d meet him at his car and hung up. “I’ve got to go.”

“What’s happened?”

“I’ve got to go. I’ll call you.”

She reached out and grabbed my arm. “Talk to me. Don’t cut me out. We’re on the same side.”

“Oh, so
now
we’re on the same side?”

“Come on,” she said, her eyes all fierce. “I couldn’t tell you. And I wouldn’t have told you if you hadn’t figured it out by yourself. But now that you know, you also know how useful I can be. Let’s help each other. Neither of us can afford to let this guy run off with Sokolov or the van.”

I didn’t have time for this. Aparo was rushing down to meet me. A dozen SWAT guys were gearing up and getting into their vans. Every second counted.

“Fine. Come with me.”

“What’s happened?” she said as she sprinted across the street alongside me.

***

T
HE WAREHOUSE WAS IN
a run-down light-industrial zone close to the LIRR station, just south of Liberty Avenue. There wasn’t much around in terms of activity—a lot of the warehouses and commercial structures had “Available for Rent” signposts outside them. It was clearly bust time in the old cycle, and the loading zones around here looked like they’d been hit hard. Which made it a perfect place for someone like Koschey to find himself a quiet little corner from which to sow his mayhem.

The caller’s information had been good enough to match up to a particular warehouse, the one we were currently staking out. Me, Aparo, Kanigher, Larisa, and twelve highly trained members of the Bureau’s SWAT team. The four of us were all suited up in Kevlar, windbreakers with big letters on the back, earpieces in and weapons out, poised to raid the place. The SWAT guys looked like they were ready to storm hell itself.

A thermal-imaging scan showed only one person in there and no heat signature from a warm car engine. The lone figure was on the ground with his back against the wall and wasn’t moving, which meant he had either dozed off or he was tied in place. It didn’t guarantee he was alive. At this distance, the FLIR camera couldn’t tell us what his temperature was, and the human body didn’t cool down that fast.

With nothing else moving in there, we decided to go in.

The SWAT-team leader—Infantino again, from the shoot-out at the docks—led his team in. They battered the door down and streamed in with breathtaking precision and smoothness, like storming a place was an Olympian synchronized sport. We went in right behind them. I heard a lot of “Clear,” then someone’s voice burst through my eardrums and I followed the instructions and cut through the large space to a small office in the back corner and a face that I was very familiar with by then, even though I’d only seen it in photographs.

It was Sokolov, on the floor, his hands tied to a radiator behind him.

He was very much alive.

We freed him and I had him whisked out of there by three of the SWAT guys while the rest of us checked the place out. The van was there, its back doors wide open, only it was empty. And that was it. There was nothing else there.

“He’s got to be coming back,” I told the team. “No way he’d leave Sokolov like this. He’s coming back.”

“Then we’d better get ready for him,” Infantino said.

I left Kanigher with the SWAT guys to help set up a perimeter, and Aparo, Larisa, and I set off to talk to Sokolov.

***

K
OSCHEY SCOWLED AS HE
eyed the two parked SWAT vans and the Bureau sedan from a discreet position behind the edge of a building a block away.

So they had Sokolov. And they were lying in wait for his return.

Chyort voz’mi
, he cursed inwardly.

He was angry at himself. Livid. He should have taken Sokolov with him on his test run. He’d considered it, but then he’d decided that Sokolov could be a liability out in the open. The schoolteacher knew Koschey planned to kill him. He knew he had nothing to lose. And people with nothing to lose could do reckless things.

He hadn’t wanted to terminate Sokolov either. Certainly not before he was sure that the device still worked properly. He wasn’t sure when he’d pull that trigger, if at all. Sokolov could still be useful if he didn’t become too much of an encumbrance. But at the moment, that was academic. The scientist was in the hands of the Americans. And there were too many of them there for Koschey to wade in with his guns blazing—assuming Sokolov hadn’t already been spirited away to some secure location, which he probably had been.

He watched some more, an unpleasant feeling tugging at his chest—then he thought of the laptop and an idea blew the feeling away. Not just any idea.

A deliciously ironic one.

***

W
E FOUND
S
OKOLOV HUDDLED
in a SWAT support van a block away from the warehouse. Four of Infantino’s guys were locked and loaded and watching over him.

He stood up, all jittery and anxious. “Is Daphne okay? I keep asking and they won’t tell me she’s okay.”

“She’s fine,” I assured him. “We have her in protective custody till this all blows over.”

I watched as relief flooded his face. “Does she know you have me? Can I talk to her?”

“Not just yet. But soon. Just as soon as we have everything well in hand. It’s as much about your safety as it is about hers.”

He nodded, his eyes blinking nervously. “All right. Thank you.”

He seemed shaken and looked weary and haggard, but at least he was unhurt and in reasonably good shape. We gave him a bottle of electrolyte-rich water, sat him down, and asked him if he needed any medical attention, food, or anything else. He said he was fine. We then quickly went through what he knew about Koschey’s current whereabouts. He told us they’d moved “it” out of the van and into another vehicle, a black SUV. A Chevy, he thought.

I was about to pass that on to Infantino when an urgent sense of foreboding ripped through me. “Wait,” I asked Sokolov, “this ‘thing,’ your machine—it’s in another car and it’s operational?”

“Yes . . .” He hesitated, unsure as to what I was getting at.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I blurted. “We’ve got to get everyone out of here. He could use it on us.”

I
hit my comms mike. “Alpha One, this is Reilly.”

Infantino’s voice burst through my ear. “I’m here. No sign of him yet.”

“We might have a problem. Get your men ready to pull out. Might have to do it real fast.”

He clearly didn’t like this. “What’s going on?”

“Just be ready to do it if I tell you to.” I turned back to Sokolov, thinking this could get really bad in a heartbeat. “Your machine. It takes over the brain, doesn’t it? It can make us turn on each other?”

Confusion and utter horror flushed across his face. “How do you know? Have you—has someone used it?”

“Yes. Look, I need to know, is there anything that can block it? Is there anything we can do to protect ourselves from it?”

His eyes were darting left and right, his mouth was stammering as he tried to calm himself and focus on my question. “Yes, there’s—I had some ear protectors in the van, but he’s got them in his car.”

“Ear protectors?”

“Yes, like earphones. The kind they wear on construction sites. I’ve modified them, of course. With wire mesh and Kevlar plating.”

My mind was racing. “So it comes through the ears? Is that how it works?”

“Yes.” He nodded furtively. “It heats up the inner”—he caught himself—“it goes through the ear canals,” he said, conscious of the urgency.

“What about earplugs?” I pulled out my comms piece and showed it to him. “What about these?”

He turned it over in his fingers and examined it, then shook his head. “No good. They’ll provide a bit of protection, but not much. And that’s only if you have them in both ears.”

This wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t imagine the SWAT guys had enough comms sets for everyone to have two earbuds in anyway.

I could feel the seconds sprinting away. It was maddeningly frustrating. We needed to stay put—this was our one chance to get the bastard—but at the same time, we were sitting ducks.

“What about the helmets?” I asked him, pointing to the SWAT agents in the van with us. They were decked out in drab green fatigues, thick body armor that included a large crotch panel and an FBI patch across the chest, goggles and helmets. “They’re Kevlar,” I told him.

“It’s not enough. You need the mesh to break up the microwaves. Think of it like a phone signal. It can get through.” He saw my frown, then added, “If they’re on tight around the ears, they’ll offer some protection,” he said. “But they won’t block everything out. I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t much, but it was still better than nothing. I turned to the SWAT agent. “You got any extra helmets or comms units in the vans?”

He shook his head. “No. We load up in full gear.”

I looked at Aparo, then at Larisa. The three of us, plus Sokolov, were totally unprotected.

The others weren’t much better off.

***

K
OSCHEY WAS BACK IN
his SUV, with the open laptop on the seat next to him. He had the engine running, and his finger was hovering over the laptop’s keyboard.

Maybe it was time to test Sokolov’s machine a second time.

And this time, on a far more deserving audience.

He stared ahead, deep in thought, debating using Sokolov’s invention to get the Americans to do his work for him.

All it would take was one tap of his finger to switch it on and turn the whole warehouse area into a kill zone. They’d destroy one another. They’d also kill Sokolov. Which was better than letting them have him.

One tap and it would all be done.

He thought about it for a minute, picturing the scene in his mind, weighing the pros and the cons.

Either way, he needed to act.

***

W
E HAD TO GET
out of there, and fast. Which meant everyone had to get out. I wasn’t leaving Infantino and the others to face it alone.

I thumbed on my comms mike. “Alpha One. Our guy’s got some kind of brain scrambler in his SUV. It comes in through the ears. It’ll make us turn our guns on each other. Only protection is to have plugs or comms in both ears and have the helmets strapped on real tight. But it’s no guarantee. What do you think?”

It took him a second to process it, then he asked, “You serious?”

“’Fraid so,” I told him. “Look, we want this guy real bad, you know that, and this is our chance to take him down, but there’s no guarantee the helmets will work and if they don’t, it’s going to turn into a bloodbath.”

“How confident are you about the helmets?” he asked again.

I waved over the SWAT agent closest to me and checked the padding around his ears. It looked pretty tight. And the Kevlar was designed to stop most bullets. But it didn’t have the mesh.

I weighed it all up, conscious of the ticking clock in my ears.

I didn’t think we were going to get a better chance. But we couldn’t all stay.

“All right,” I said. “I can’t force anyone to stay. But I’m staying. Alpha One?”

“You bet,” he said without hesitation.

Aparo said, “Hang on a sec—”

I cut him off. “Take the car. Get them both out of here, now,” I said as I motioned to Sokolov and Larisa, then I turned to the SWAT agent. “Give me your helmet. Take your team and one of the vans and escort them back to Federal Plaza.”

Aparo started with a “Sean—” but I cut him off again.

“Sokolov’s the priority. Get him out of here. And with a bit of luck, we’ll take Koschey out too and we can all catch up over a beer later.”

He shook his head at me, but he knew it was the right call.

“Let’s go,” he told Sokolov and Larisa.

I took the SWAT agent’s helmet and strapped it on tight, then watched as they all mounted up.

Larisa glanced at me for a second before she got in the back of Aparo’s car, her eyes clearly telegraphing the concern she felt. I acknowledged her look with a slight nod. She nodded back, hesitated, then climbed in.

The car and the van drove off, leaving me and Infantino’s team to face the unknown.