The safe room in this lonely fortress had been designed, appropriately enough, first and foremost for the safety of its occupants. The only window was glazed with a high-grade bullet-proof glass that was unusual and expensive for such a remote location. The walls, although weather beaten on the outside were solid stone, two feet thick, the ceiling and floors solid concrete, the door heavy oak with a bomb-proof core and controlled by biometric and two digital locking systems.
The occupant, obviously, was paranoid.
Valentin Vladimirovich Ivankoff slept lightly on his back, a pillow covered in the finest silk beneath his cropped blond hair. The silk sheets had been thrown free in favor of the heavy bear skin due to the extreme cold seeping in from the mountain. The old wood burning stove in the corner of the room had long gone out.
A click sounded. Valentin’s eyes instantly opened in the darkness.
He lay perfectly still staring up at the ceiling for a while, his breathing almost inaudible with a steady and even beat. Then he scanned the room, glad that he was no longer subject to the severe headaches that he had been recently suffering due to the high altitude. Just outside of his private suite, on the other side of the solid door sat three guards, courtesy of the Ukrainian army.
Inside the room with him were two of his most trusted personal bodyguards and the three members of the Scorpion 7 protection squad. All were waiting for the British Government’s expert analyst and the money that he would bring with him. Ivankov relaxed a little more as he watched the Scorpion squad; they were rated among the best and Valentin Vladimirovich Ivankov had had dealings with them on a number of occasions over the last two years since their inception. They were good. No, he thought, they really were the best of the best.
Hawk was cleaning his Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun, while Jules sat with her head resting against the wall as she rubbed at her eyes. Big Fitz, was on his feet by the bullet proof window. The big man tilted his head sideways, and there was a cracking sound of released tension as his neck vertebrae clicked back into alignment.
From outside there came a distant muffled sound of a helicopter’s rotor blades cutting through the thin mountain air. Hawk and Jules exchanged meaningful glances. “What is it?” said Ivankoff, suddenly — skittishly — nervous. He sat up in bed, quickly glancing down at where his own personal and concealed sawn-off shotgun nestled under a heavy oak chest: the last line of protection should Scorpion 7 and the bodyguards outside fail.
Yakov moved towards him, black-clad, menacing and yet, to Valentin, reassuring. He set his own weapon to fully automatic and grinned a mouthful of gold teeth. “Don’t worry yourself, Valentin,” he rumbled. “We are all here. You have nothing to fret over, you’ll be fine.” He reached out to pat Ivankov on the back.
A shrill noise cut through the air and then a metallic clack.
Both digital locks failed.
The heavy oak security door burst open.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” came the calm controlled voice.
The figure was of average height and slight build and dressed in a single-piece black body-hugging garment. The face was concealed by a tight black balaclava that revealed only the eyes, which were as blue as the ocean.
The voice was quietly spoken, carried no accent and the figure appeared not to be carrying any sort of weapon.
Everybody in the room froze…
“Who the fuck?”
“Save your questions for your God.”
The figure moved with awesome speed as the three members of Scorpion 7 and Ivankov’s two personal bodyguards opened fire. Rounds screamed across the room as the black clad figure leaped high into the air, somersaulted, twisted, and connected, booted feet first, with the large bulk of Yakov. The big man fell, and before he had crashed to the ground a long gleaming knife had been run across his throat.
The black-masked figure looked up — a quick glance. Yakov’s gun was lifted without preamble from the floor.
“You bastard!” hissed Jules, her feminine mouth open in disbelief. She had moved with exceptional agility and speed, her gun spitting its lethal payload, shell casings ejecting, but the black clad figure was — gone.
The gun muzzle felt cold against Jules’ temple. There were two dull thuds as the rounds exited and slammed into oak panelling before Hawk got his MP5 submachine gun trained on the black-clad figure from across the room.
But it was too late, “No,” Hawk mouthed silently.
The black intruder squeezed the pistol trigger and, even as Jules’ blood and brains were oozing from the side of her smashed skull, kicked off from her slumping corpse and somersaulted in a tight ball, somehow avoiding the screaming 9mm rounds from Hawk’s weapon, hit the ground and rolled towards a heavy oak chest. From nowhere a sawn off shotgun appeared and there was a heavy bass boom. Hawk was lifted from his feet and blown across the room. He left a trailing smear of blood against the stone wall, then slid down onto his haunches and remained quite still.
Suddenly everything was awesomely silent. The smell of cordite hung heavy in the air, only the flickering of a damaged light illuminated the cowering figure of Valentin Vladimirovich Ivankov. He looked up slowly, glanced around at the carnage, and let out a long-drawn shuddering sigh. He was fully aware that he was lucky to be alive, realised that he was extremely lucky not to be a corpse sprawling beside the five carcasses on the floor.
The black clad Assassin was standing with the sawn-off shotgun in his or her hands.
The figure said nothing. Made no move — no sound.
Valentin, who had good cause to feel nervous, was uncomfortable sitting on the hard floor as trickles of sweat crawled down his neck and back.
He looked at the figure as he stood up and dusted himself off, “Shit man, I can’t believe you’ve just taken down a Scorpion unit,” he croaked. There was no response — physical or oral. “How the fuck did you move so fast around this room? What are you a fucking acrobat or something? And are you here for what I think you’re here for? You don’t need to worry, I’ve still got it and it’s safe. I was on my way to him when I was snatched by this lot.” Valentin looked around the room.
The sawn-off shotgun swung up and the double barrels blasted Valentin across the room and into a twisted bloody heap in the corner. There was a clatter as the shotgun fell noisily onto the flagstones and landed in a pool of congealing blood. Soft black boots left crimson imprints across the floor while footsteps pounded down the darkened corridor towards the scene of carnage. The Assassin threw a small round ball at the center of the bullet-proof glass which attached itself by tiny suction cups.
The figure approached the aluminium case, hurled aside in the recent confusion. Crouched down behind the oak chest and hands moved swiftly to open the two outer combination catches, revealing the contents, which were hurriedly tipped out onto the floor. The pressure release was found and the inner metal lining came away easily to reveal the secret compartment holding the memory card. This was stowed away inside the tight black clothing.