“Valentin Andropov is dead,” he announced coolly, bringing his Glock to bear on the pilot. “And you’re going to set us down on that highway.”
Silence. Harry checked his mirrors, easing into the far left lane of the freeway. He caught Carol’s eyes in the rear-view mirror, moments before she looked away.
She hadn’t spoken to him since leaving Pyotr’s body behind in the mansion, the image of the teenager slumped over dead in the chair still haunting his memories.
A sudden roar assaulted his ears, the sound of a helicopter coming in low and fast. The helicopter. They hadn’t heard it for nearly a half hour, long enough to dismiss its earlier presence as a fluke.
He looked out the driver’s side window of the panel van just in time to see a large civilian Sikorsky sweep by overhead, its rotor wash shaking the van from side to side. Some fluke.
Chaos. The sound of automobile horns filled the night, a night suddenly glowing red with the glare of brake lights.
Harry swerved, watching as an SUV collided with a small family sedan ahead of him, crumpling the side of the car as if it was made of tin and sending it spinning into the path of another vehicle.
The Sikorsky descending from the sky like a ravenous bird of prey.
He saw the side doors open, armed men materializing in the opening and saw in that moment Korsakov’s gambit. And a ruthless, desperate gambit it was.
Desperate enough that it just might work.
He caught a glance of Han’s face in the glow of the lights and read his expression clear. More innocents were going to die on this night.
Motioning for one of his men to cover the pilot, Yuri leaped from the open door of the hovering executive helicopter to the hard asphalt of the freeway just below him, followed by the two remaining members of his team.
Dropping to one knee, he extended the folding stock of his AK against his shoulder, his weapon a part of himself as he took cover behind a wrecked Mustang. Scanning for the gray van.
Nichols was out there — with nowhere to go in the midst of the massive traffic pile-up, nowhere to hide. A wolf brought to bay. Never more dangerous.
Kill Nichols. Kill everyone with him. Korsakov’s new rules of engagement. Chambers was worth nothing to them now.
He could feel someone’s eyes on him, a sixth sense warning him of danger. Turning, the Kalashnikov extended in front of him, he saw a woman not five feet away, pinned against the seat of her Toyota by voluminous airbags.
A sacrificial lamb, to bring the wolf out into the open. The mercenary never hesitated, watching as the fear on her face turned to outright panic. His finger squeezed the trigger, a burst of fire ripping open the night.
Chaos. Death.
Despite being walled in by the Dodge in front of them, the sound of automatic weapons fire from their front gave an unmistakable indication of what was going on. And the screams.
Harry glanced in his mirrors, gauging the distance between himself and the surrounding cars. Very little room — the freeway had been transformed in moments into a seething, panicked mass of humanity and crashed vehicles. A man ran past his door, fleeing for his life.
“I’m not going to sit here and listen to this,” Carol announced suddenly. He looked back to see her pull the Kahr from its holster inside her jacket, reaching for the side door of the van.
He twisted in his seat, seizing her arm. “There’s nothing you can do except get yourself killed. And it is my responsibility to protect you.”
Defiance shone from her eyes, the ghost of her father. “That’s all you’ve been doing, isn’t it? And look at the people that have died because of it.”
Another burst of gunfire from their front. There was no time to have this argument. “Get down,” he whispered, turning the steering wheel all the way to the left. Aiming it toward a four-foot gap between an abandoned Grand Cherokee and a Chevy Impala.
He looked over at Han, who was busy checking the magazine of Harry’s UMP-45. “Hold on tight.”
His foot hit the accelerator pedal, jamming it all the way to the floor, tires squealing against the asphalt as the van turned hard, gaining momentum. It slammed into the front bumper of the Impala like a battering ram, tearing it away as though it was made of paper.
Hard right and he broke out into what had been the far left lane of the interstate, the Sikorsky dead ahead, hovering only five, maybe six feet off the roadway.
The death rattle of Kalashnikovs on full-automatic resounded through the night, the windshield disintegrating into a million shards of glass as Harry slid down onto the floor of the van, his arms locking the steering wheel in place.
He felt the van shudder from the impact of high-velocity rounds and looked over to see Han curled up across from him, the submachine gun across his chest.
Braced for impact.
Yuri watched in disbelief as the van raced forward, on a collision course with the Sikorsky. Watched as if in slow-motion as his team members emptied their magazines into the van, its tires exploding, sparks flying from the bare metal.
He shouted a warning, starting to run toward his men, his voice drowned out by the gunfire.
He’d barely taken ten steps when the top of the van connected with the tail boom of the Sikorsky.
The agonizing shriek of metal on metal, audible even over the thunderous roar of the helicopter. The van shuddered from the impact, already decelerating from the friction of rolling on blown tires.
From his position on the floor, near the pedals, Harry heard the whine of the helicopter’s rotors as they flailed the air in a futile attempt to stay aloft.
The night exploded in fire.
Heat and flame washed through the shattered windows of the van, igniting the upholstery. Harry drew himself up, hand searching for the door handle. “Out! Out! Everyone out.”
Han tossed him the SCAR and one of their backpacks as he jumped from the van, pulling open Carol’s door. “Let’s move it!”
He looked back toward the flaming wreckage of the S-76 as they ran down the highway, taking in with a pitiless glance the sight of one of the mercenaries writhing in the fire.
Fortunes of war.
Korsakov checked his phone for what must have been the thirtieth time in as many minutes, each time greeted with the response, No New Messages.
Where was Yuri? He should have sent a text by now. A text announcing Nichols’ death. That was all that mattered now, revenge for the men he had lost.
Dig two graves, he thought, remembering the old proverb of the vengeful, but his decision had already been made.
“Do you have that satellite yet?” he demanded, glancing into the darkened backseat of the SUV as they continued to speed down the freeway.
“Da,” the boy replied. “Just coming on-line now. Another moment or two.”
For all of its advances, technology could seem painfully slow. “Is it true that Valentin is dead?” Viktor asked, looking over his laptop. His voice seemed to tremble even as he spoke the name.
“It is, Vitya,” the assassin responded, letting out a heavy sigh. His employer, the man who had launched them on this godforsaken mission, was dead. With him died any chance of receiving their final payment, a full half of Korsakov’s contract price. And yet he could not help but feel a strange sense of relief.
“I am glad,” the boy intoned solemnly, and Korsakov found himself in agreement. His old friend had fallen far — to have become the molester of children, the whore of the jihadists. The world was better off with him dead.