SWAT team leader Luke Palmer set up a parabolic mic facing the house and they listened for voices, hoping to count and place everyone inside. They heard only the sound of a single man’s footsteps in the living room.
Jack looked down at his watch, said low into his comm, “Ruth, is everyone in place?”
“Yes, we’re ready.”
At Luke’s nod, Jack raised the SWAT team bullhorn. “This is the FBI. Sergei Petrov, come out now with your hands over your head. The house is surrounded, there’s no way out.”
They heard a shout, and someone running, then another man’s loud voice, but they couldn’t understand his words. He was speaking Russian.
“I make two men,” Luke whispered. “They’re running, getting weapons together.” He said into his microphone, “Launch tear gas grenades.” The launchers fired in unison from both the front and back of the house. They heard the sounds of breaking glass as the grenades crashed through the windows. The lights went out, they heard more shouting, and then the obscenely loud crack of weapons on full automatic aimed at their positions. They heard more automatic fire from the back of the house, loud and clean on their comms.
Luke said, “Open fire,” into his comms, and the SWAT team, most of them flat on their bellies, opened up a deafening barrage of fire louder than anything Jack had heard since Afghanistan. It smashed the glass doors and windows, peppering the walls with flying dust and bullet holes. There was a brief lull while most of the team shoved in new magazines. Jack said, “Luke, keep laying down fire, I’ll take two of your men to the north side of the house where the house plans show only one window, see if we can’t end this.” He said into his comms, “Ruth, give us sixty seconds to get their attention away from you, then see if you can close in on the house from your position.”
“Sixty seconds.”
Jack and two SWAT members loped through the trees to the north and sprinted across the open clearing at the side of the house. Jack realized all the heavy gunfire was coming from the front of the house after the SWAT team’s first barrage. “Ruth,” he whispered into his comms, “both men are in front firing at us, but be careful entering the house, there could be booby traps.”
“Approaching the kitchen, moving forward.”
Jack went down to his knees, crawled to the big shattered picture window, felt the hit of tear gas floating out from the living room. He rose and emptied his H&K through the smoke.
He heard Ruth’s voice come through his comms, “We’re in through the kitchen.”
Bullets flew at Jack through the smoke. He flattened himself against the foundation, reared up, and threw a flash bang through the living room window, shielding himself as best he could from the deafening noise and the blinding flash of light. He heard yelling, someone running. He shouted into his comms, “They’re moving toward the back of the house.” He waved the SWAT team forward. They kicked in the bullet-ridden front door and broke through into the entrance hall. The living room was filled with smoke from the flash bang and the tear gas. They all froze in place, listening, heard only the breathing of the agents beside them. Then they heard Ruth and the SWAT agents moving toward them from the rear of the house. Jack talked to them through the comms until Ruth, Ollie, and their team came bursting through the closed door at the back of the entrance hall.
“They’re gone,” Jack said. “But where?”
Suddenly there was gunfire. They heard a yell from the other side of the house. Someone was hit.
They ran out of the front door, saw Petrov burst into the woods at the side of the house, running all out toward the yacht. Was there an escape route not on the house plans?
Jack heard a SWAT team member on the comm. “Target number two is down. He was carrying a machine gun. We’re clear here.”
Jack took off after Petrov, only vaguely aware of shouting and running footsteps behind him. He saw Petrov again on the wooden dock, unlooping a mooring line from its iron cleat and jumping up onto the deck. Petrov heard Jack running toward him, jerked around and fired off a half-dozen rounds from a handgun. Jack dove to the ground, felt the shock of a bullet slap high into his right arm. He fired back, saw Petrov flinch when a bullet hit his thigh, but he didn’t slow. He limped into the pilot house and the big engine roared to life. The yacht began to pull away from the dock.
Jack ran onto the dock, heard footsteps behind him, but didn’t turn. He dropped his H&K, took a flying leap, and grabbed the deck railing. His arm screamed with pain, and he tried to pull himself up, but he couldn’t, he could hardly hold on. He saw Petrov in the pilot house, steering out, and then he heard Cam yelling, saw her leap up to the yacht railing near the bow.
“Hold on, Jack.” She pulled herself onboard, then braced her feet against a cleat and pulled him up. He fell on his belly on deck. She jerked around, saw Petrov standing in the pilot house doorway, aiming his Beretta at them as he clumsily tried to tie a towel tightly around his bleeding leg.
He stared at her. “You’re as ferocious as Elena.”
“Elena? You mean Elena Orlov? Your bodyguard? Your lover?”
He looked startled.
“You really do look like a vampire in the moonlight,” Cam said. “I could suggest using a tanning bed occasionally, might help keep people from trying to stake you.”
“Shut up. From this distance I could kill you both before either of you could aim your weapons. I won’t if you don’t give me any more trouble. I will set you both off on one of the small islands down the river. But first, drop your Glocks. Now.”
Jack came up onto his knees, pulled his Glock off its waist clip and dropped it on the wooden deck in front of him. Cam followed suit, dropped her Glock beside his.
Petrov said to Jack, “You’re bleeding on my yacht. Wrap up your arm.”
Cam shrugged out of her FBI jacket, pulled the black T-shirt covering her Kevlar vest off over her head, and shrugged back into her jacket. She went down on her knees and tied the shirt tight around Jack’s arm. She whispered against his ear, “It’ll be okay, Jack.”
“Shut up and move away from him.” Petrov waved the Beretta. He looked back to see the SWAT team standing on the boat dock staring after them. He smiled.
59
“We killed your man,” Jack said. “He was too loyal for his own good, staying back to let you escape.”
“Abram was with me since I was a boy and he a young man of twenty.” He pointed his Beretta at Cam’s chest. “I told you to move away from him.”
Cam took two steps back to lean against the railing. From the lights moving along on the shoreline, she could tell they were picking up speed, heading south. She said, “It was one of our agents who spoke to Abram on the burner phone you provided your assassin at Ginger Lake. Keeping him alive helped us find you.” As she spoke, she flicked her comms unit to transmit. Now Ruth and Ollie and the SWAT team would hear everything. She waved her hand toward the pilot house. “You put it on autopilot, heading south.”
“Of course, there’s no need to adjust the course this time of night.”
Jack said, “Did you put the boat under Elena Orlov’s name, that is, Cortina Alvarez’s name?”
Petrov said nothing, grimaced as he tightened the towel around his leg.
Jack’s arm pulsed with pain, but he ignored it. “Listen to me, Petrov. You’re a banker, not a trained KGB agent. You’ve got no more assassins waiting in the wings for your orders. You’ve got to realize there’s no way you’re going to get out of here. The Coast Guard will be along soon.”
“It’s not the KGB, you fool. The KGB no longer exists.”
“Oh yeah, new name, same thugs.”
Petrov moved his Beretta back and forth between Jack and Cam. “You will now tell me how you found me. How you know about Elena and Cortina.”
Cam gave him a wide smile. “We’re special agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We’ve got really good brains, plus you’re on our turf.”