16
Gliding through Kuntsevo, the black Lexus sedan headed for the Central Clinical Hospital. The two Asians inside it, shielded behind the car’s tinted windows, kept their eyes on the road. Both men mentally prepared themselves for action, trying to curb the thrill that preceded it, just like in their days during military service.
Because its primary function lay in servicing top-level government officials, the Central Clinical Hospital was traditionally under direct authority of the Kremlin, being the most elite hospital in Russia, and among the best medical institutions in the world. And as such, it maintained strict security procedures, unchanged for decades. Formidable walls outlined the perimeter, entry possible only past guarded checkpoints. The first control measure was a separate exit from the highway that led to the main entrance. It was a view that had become familiar since it was televised in news flashes during Yeltsin’s frequent illnesses: a patch of forest broken by a concrete fence, and a guard booth before the gates.
When the Lexus drew up to the barrier, the FSO officer admitted the car to the hospital’s territory without question, paying attention to the car’s special number plates, registered with the parliamentary staff of the State Duma.
The hospital was a town in itself, the tiny streets eerily deserted because of the downpour. The route was straightforward, following the road to the main compound, an oval-shaped structure with splayed-out wings. When the driver parked the Lexus in front of the medical unit, the passenger retrieved a handgun and attached a suppressor to the muzzle. Satisfied with his weapon, he hid it inside his leather overcoat, and stepped out of the car. Hurrying through the falling rain towards the entrance, he pulled up the collar of the coat to cover his face, a protection from glances as much as the weather.
Behind the palatial front door made of solid wood, the lobby of the main building was just as substantial, a Stalinist luxury that had been built to last. It would have looked spacious even when crowded, but there were not many people around, with only a few medical staff passing by silently on their errands.
It was easy to go unnoticed.
As though he had been a frequent visitor, the assassin did not linger at the information display, familiar with the floor plans. Flicking away specks of water from his coat, he traversed the lobby quickly.
Beyond the thick leather sofas, he reached the elevator he needed and pressed the call button, making sure nobody would accompany him on the way down — to the tunnel that led to the psychiatric ward.
17
Scraping inside the shaft, the elevator came to a stop. Asiyah stepped into the tunnel. Underground, the silence was total bar the hum of ventilation and the buzz of overhead lamps.
She was alone. It was a slow day at the hospital.
The tunnel was a white-walled corridor like any other, except for its length. It stretched infinitely like an abandoned subway shaft. Somewhere at the other end was another row of elevators. She did not see any surveillance cameras around, but that was no reason to shorten her stride. The lamps glared in the floor tiles, casting a sequence of white orbs that her leaden feet padded over.
The tunnel opened, she could see, into a foyer. It was a nexus that connected the main elevators to other underground hallways that branched from it like wheel spokes. For a moment, Asiyah was confused.
Which way to go?
Then she saw the elevators that joined the tunnel with the main building above. There were several cabins, the system designed so that at least one elevator was always available at either level to save precious seconds.
She strode towards a cabin in the middle, the indicator above showing that it was at the underground level.
She had no chance of reaching it.
When she was still a few meters away, another elevator opened.
She was taken aback, the initial numbness of exposure giving way to terror as she saw the Oriental man inside.
There was a menacing quality about him. She hadn’t a doubt in her mind that the man was there to kill her. His own surprise at seeing her lasted only a split-second before lethal composure took over. He moved forward, fixed on her.
At once her survival instincts kicked in, shaking off her sluggishness. Every nerve cell became supercharged. The assassin started toward her, drawing his gun, his motions well-honed. At point-blank range, she was a target impossible to miss.
Before he could level his gun at her, she lunged, acting upon training over instinct. In the tunnel’s confines, dodging sideways or running in retreat would have spelled instant death. The adverse movement towards the man made her opponent vulnerable. Asiyah eliminated the distance separating her from the killer, cutting down the time he had to make his shot, stiffling his freedom of movement, the proximity so horrific that she could hear him suck in air when she struck him.
Thrusting the shock baton like a fencer, she jabbed the electrodes into his chest.
With the electric impulse disrupting the signals coming from his brain to the body, the assassin went instantly limp, paralyzed. His hand released the gun and he crashed back into the elevator cabin like a slain beast.
He lay immobile, eyes empty. The elevator doors engaged to shut — but, finding resistance against his numb legs, rolled back wide open.
Asiyah felt she had done enough to escape from the tunnel, and wasted no time. The second elevator was still waiting.
As she pushed the call button, she caught glimpse of the assassin regaining movement. He was still too stunned to to get off the ground, but he was trying to reach the gun at his side. Beating him to the gun was out of the question — she had to flee.
She darted inside the empty cabin and punched the button to go up.
Fear scalded her as she saw the door slide shut, creeping with agonizing slowness, as if conspiring with the killer to stall her escape. If he reached the button for the elevator, nothing would save her. Punches and kicks were useless against a gun.
The door sealed, and she pleaded for it to stay that way. Only when she felt the drag of the elevator rising did she remember to breathe again.
18
Sokolov was driving along the rural road that twisted through the forest, squeezing every bit of power from the car. It was an unfamiliar route to Moscow compared to the one he normally used from Bykovo, but the dashboard GPS screen provided navigation, plotting the shortest distance to the Ring Highway.
Moscow was shaped like a spider’s web, originating from the enclosure of the Kremlin, weaving out exponentially, and secured by the outer circle of the Moscow Ring Highway — a gigantic race track that confined the city limits. On the map, the M5 was a blinking dot outside the southeastern edge of the web. A dark-colored, forested mass of land spanning between Kutuzovsky and the western part of the Ring was the Central Clinical Hospital.
Once he made it to the Ring, he would have to travel all the way along the circumference to the other extremity.
But first he had to get there. He pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor. The M5 howled and charged forward like a predator in full stride. A knot was tightening in his stomach as he navigated blind turns on the narrow road. Thankfully, the road was almost free of other cars. Whatever few sluggish vehicles he encountered forced him to veer off to the opposite lane and overtake, risking a head-on impact with an oncoming car, or a slide into the trees off the slick surface. And yet, he could not slow down. He tricked himself into thinking that the only way to overcome this was to finish the section quicker, so he attacked the turns, and the stretches between them, more aggressively. The BMW gripped the road tightly.