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He didn’t bother to ask his SVR section head for permission to “requisition” one of the apartments facing Pavrikova’s. His boss had made it clear that his surveillance detail’s purpose was intimidation. They were to maintain an obvious presence in Lucya Pavrikova’s life outside of the FSB’s Lubyanka headquarters. Physical surveillance had been the term used by his superiors. Foreign Intelligence Service assets had the rest of Pavrikova covered from an electronic standpoint. Apartment phone. Cell phone. Email. Eavesdropping devices. Remote cameras. All of this would be monitored from a distance. His team would do the grunt work, which suited him fine. He just wished he could get a better view of Pavrikova’s ass, or her roommate’s. Either one would work for him.

He could see the top of her blond ponytail in front of the refrigerator, which meant she would reappear at the window with a refilled wine glass in a minute or two. He lowered the scope and turned to his comrade, who had nodded off in the driver’s seat. He nudged the agent.

“Hang in there a little longer. She’s going to drink herself to sleep at this rate,” Shelepin said.

“We’re headed back when the apartment goes dark?” the driver asked.

“Yeah. We’ll leave the two cars to keep an eye on the exits,” Shelepin said.

In addition to the car parked on the street in front of the apartment, they had another jammed into the tight service alley behind the building. The alley led to a rear service entrance that allowed easy access to the large trash collection bins located in the dingy area off the main stairwell. The doors had been padlocked from the inside since they started Pavrikova’s surveillance, which was standard procedure in many of the apartment buildings. The landlord or building owner would meet the trash removal crew in person and unlock the door, at the same time passing a weekly payment to the crew…most of which would eventually find its way into the hands of the local mafiya. Still, local fire ordinances required two working ground-floor exits, so several of the occupants would have the key to the padlock. They couldn’t risk Lucya being one of them.

He stretched his arms in his seat, twisting his body to look into the pitch-black recesses of the van. The shadowy figure sitting directly behind the driver cracked his knuckles.

“You’re going to give yourself arthritis doing that,” Shelepin said.

“That’s an old wives’ tale,” the agent said.

A cell phone lit up the inside of the drink holder on the van’s center console tray, bathing all of them in a soft blue light and exposing the agent in the van’s second row of seats, who squinted. Shelepin grabbed the phone and answered.

“Agent Shelepin.”

“Why the fuck aren’t you answering your radio? The apartment was just breached! Nobody is answering the radios!”

Shelepin didn’t bother to raise the surveillance scope to view the apartment. Training and instinct took over, telling him not to waste the time. He hissed at the driver and grabbed his handheld radio.

“Let’s go. Front door,” he said before speaking into the handheld. “Surveillance units report. This is Shelepin! Report your status now!”

The van lurched forward, racing toward the main street. He received no reply from either unit. Seconds from turning the corner, he put the cell phone back to his ear.

“What happened in the apartment?”

“One man kicked the door in and shot the roommate. Your target left willingly. What is the status of the other agents?”

“I don’t know,” Shelepin replied just before the van turned sharply right onto Raskovoy Boulevard, pinning him against the passenger door.

* * *

Nikolai Mazurov reached the corner in time to hear the van’s tires screech, validating one of their most critical assumptions about the SVR operation. Their electronics tech had studied the neighborhood’s electronic signature for hours and had found several suspicious bandwidths that could signify the presence of listening devices or wireless camera feeds. He couldn’t be sure, since every household in this lower income neighborhood utilized some form of pirated electronics. Because these devices were mostly illegal on the international market, the manufacturers weren’t concerned with conforming their products to recognized international bandwidth spectrums. Bandwidth ranges varied wildly with these unregulated devices, creating an electronic signature that looked like a “fucking mosaic,” according to their tech. Even this mosaic had a pattern that could be interpreted given enough time, but time wasn’t one of the luxuries on their menu today. They had arrived shortly before six o’clock, several minutes before their target exited the nearest Metro station. They simply assumed that the apartment had been rigged with video feeds, which meant their countdown started when Klinkman kicked down Pavrikova’s door.

Nikolai risked a quick peek and saw the silver van barreling toward the intersection. He wouldn’t have time for any well-aimed semiautomatic shots. He thumbed the fire rate selector switch to automatic and raised the rifle, jamming the suppressor against the building’s corner and tilting the weapon forty-five degrees to use a small custom red dot sight affixed to the side.

“Engaging hostile van. Request pickup on Raskovoy in front of target building.”

Not waiting for a response, Nikolai fired a sustained but controlled burst of fire at the front windshield, peppering the glass directly in front of the driver with several rounds. His next burst collapsed a large section of windshield on the passenger side. The van lurched to the left and accelerated through the intersection, barely missing the corner that concealed him. The unguided vehicle raced past him and slammed into a streetlight on the opposite side of Raskovoy Boulevard, casting a dark shadow over the area.

Nikolai quickly shifted to the protected side of the building’s corner and fired the rifle’s remaining rounds into the back of the van. While swiftly changing rifle magazines, he noticed several lights appear in the windows above. Their timeline had just been hyper-accelerated. Without hesitation, he leveled the Groza and systematically punctured the van’s rear compartment with the thirty rounds supplied by the fresh magazine. He reloaded the rifle, keeping it leveled toward the van, and used his peripheral vision to navigate the street. Any movement within the wrecked vehicle would conjure another maelstrom of steel from Nikolai’s weapon. His earphone crackled.

“Coming out of the apartment with our package.”

He detected movement to his left and quickly glanced over his shoulder to confirm that Klinkman and Pavrikova had walked through the front door.

“The street is clear. Where the fuck is the van?” Nikolai said.

“Turning onto Raskovoy,” his earpiece responded.

A pair of headlights appeared on Raskovoy, moving rapidly toward them. Nikolai tensed, and Klinkman eased back into the building’s alcove. The lights flashed twice, allaying their concern and drawing them back into the open.

“Let’s go,” he said, still focused on the last remaining immediate threat.

He started walking backward along the sidewalk, while Klinkman and Lucya jogged toward the speeding van. By the time Nikolai climbed inside the van a few seconds later, Klinkman had replaced the electronics tech as their driver. The van sped down Raskovoy and turned onto a side street. If their plan was still intact, Klinkman would find the next major road heading north.