Now, clutching his Five-seveN in one hand, he eased open the door, which pulled effortlessly aside, then he moved in, becoming one with the darkness. Holding his breath, he reached back and shut the door after himself.
A voice came from another room ahead, the Russian cadence at first strange, but then, as he pricked up his ears, Fisher recognized the voice.
Before advancing, he scanned his surroundings. He was crouched in a warehouse area of sorts where orders must’ve been wrapped and prepped to be delivered out the back door. The butcher-block tables had remained, the cabinets mounted to the walls emptied, the doors hanging open.
The narrow hallway ahead led straight out to the customer cases and butcher shop proper, with an intersecting hall lying between. Dim light filtered down from the right side of the intersection, with long shadows shifting across the wall.
“Sam, Briggs here. I got you on sonar. Looks like just two ahead, right of your position. One guy might be standing on something.”
Briggs had beat him to the punch. Fisher had been a breath away from activating his own sonar. He used his OPSAT to reply silently:
Good. Mark targets. Wait for me.
“Sam, Kestrel’s too important to lose,” said Grim. “And if he’s got Yenin, they’re both valuable assets.”
He knew that, too, but Kestrel had assumedly found and removed his tracker, meaning he was not honoring his end of the bargain to feed Fourth Echelon information when they needed it. If he had gone completely rogue, then what would stop him from trying to kill Fisher? A whole lot of cash, maybe, but not much else. Kestrel might assume they were even now. He owed Fisher and Briggs nothing for saving his life. No more deals.
In truth, Fisher had no idea how Kestrel would react, and so as he eased forward, wary of every creak of floorboard, he shoved up his trifocals and held his breath. Once he reached the intersection, he brought himself to full height and clutched his pistol with both hands before turning the corner—
To confront the man.
14
Straight ahead lay an open meat locker door, and beyond came more of those long shadows, one shaped like a figure crucified against the corrugated aluminum wall. Cobwebs spanned the ceiling above the flickering silhouettes, and the walls rattled a moment as a strong gust came through.
Fisher took advantage of that noise to step forward as a stale, dry odor wafted into his face. He turned into the locker.
And froze.
His gaze panned up to the naked man suspended from four meat hooks.
Wow. He mouthed a curse.
The sharp ends of those hooks had been driven through the soft flesh on the man’s shoulders and slammed right through his palms, Old Testament style. Small incisions like slash marks from a whip covered his legs and rump, and blood pooled down across his ankles and dripped off his toes. He was a big man, six feet at least, probably two hundred pounds with biceps chiseled in the gym. From this angle, Fisher couldn’t see his face and was glad for that. The panting and gasping that escaped his lips was hard to bear.
Since Vasily Yenin had been a double agent, the NSA and CIA had good records on him. Grim had shown Fisher the man’s dossier and accompanying photographs. Once Fisher caught the man’s profile, he nodded in confirmation, then tensed at the sound of creaking floorboards.
Kestrel came out from behind a row of metal shelving that ran along the far wall. He trained a Makarov on Fisher’s chest.
“Fisher?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Just picking up some roast beef.”
Kestrel almost smiled. “Me, too.”
Fisher took a step toward him. “We called. You didn’t answer.”
“You put tracker on me.”
“We had a deal.”
“You have no trust. Without trust, we have no deal.”
“Sam, Briggs here. I got you covered. I’ll take him out right through the wall if I have to…”
Fisher drew in a long breath, then gestured to Yenin. “Old friend of yours?”
“You know who he is.”
“Get him down. I need him alive.”
“Oh, you do? Maybe old friend of yours? Friend who kept me in coma? Maybe I have to kill you, too.” Kestrel leaned toward Fisher, his heavily tattooed right arm flexing as he clutched his pistol with both hands in an aggressive thumbs-forward grip. He took another step, exposing an area behind him where the floorboards had been pried up with a screwdriver. On the table to his right sat a Nike gym bag covered in dirt.
“What’s in the bag?”
“Pajamas.”
“How much you got in there? Stashed it here for a rainy day?”
“Shut up, Fisher. What do you want?”
“Get him down. I want information on Igor Kasperov — and this guy can get us into the Voron database.”
Kestrel shook his head. “He’s no good now. He’s like me. Ex-Voron. Passwords locked out. He can’t get you shit.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Fool. Think about it. He went missing. As soon as that happens, they lock you out. They think maybe you have been taken prisoner. Simple.”
“So you’re leaving him here to bleed to death?”
“No, I leave him for the wolves. After Chernobyl, the wolves and wild dogs fed on roe deer, and when the deer were gone, the wolves fed on dogs. Now dogs and deer are gone. So wolves are very hungry. They can eat twenty-two pounds of meat in one feeding.”
“Wolves don’t eat humans.”
“Tell that to the wolves.”
Fisher kept his pistol pointed at Kestrel’s heart but flicked his glance up to Yenin. He spoke quickly in Russian, “I can offer you help in exchange for information. I’m looking for Igor Kasperov and his daughter, Nadia. I know the SVR and Voron are looking for them, too. Do you know anything about their investigation? Maybe something they found? Anything? If you tell me, we’ll let you go.”
Yenin opened his mouth, but before he spoke, Kestrel raised his voice. “Don’t tell him anything.”
“He’ll talk to me, Kestrel, otherwise I’ll shoot you both in the legs and leave you here. Like you said, the wolves are hungry.”
“You’ll shoot me?” Kestrel asked. “You don’t see me or my gun right here?”
Fisher sighed. “Briggs? Hit the bag.”
The words had barely escaped Fisher’s lips when the Nike bag was blasted off the table by a perfectly placed 7.62mm round. The bag fell to the ground with a nice hole in its side.
“Thank you, Briggs.”
Kestrel, who’d ducked and whirled around with his pistol, searched all over the ceiling and found the entry hole in the wall.
“He never misses,” Fisher added. Indeed, Briggs had vowed to step up his game, and step it up he had.
Fisher crossed toward Kestrel. “You run, I shoot you. You run, he shoots you. Simple.”
Kestrel lifted his pistol. “How ’bout I put a bullet in your head?”
Fisher shrugged. “Then we’re just two miserable men, dying in a radioactive shithole like this.”
“Maybe that is for best.”
“I have no more time for you, Kestrel.” Fisher gestured to Yenin. “Maybe he wants to tell me something. Let him talk, then you get to walk, no questions asked.”
“Bullshit, Fisher. I said no trust. No deal.”
Fisher glanced up at Yenin. “Do you know anything about Kasperov? Do you know anything about the nuclear material stolen from Mayak?”
Yenin groaned and gasped, his eyes narrowed in agony, tears staining his stubbly cheeks. His breathing grew more labored, reaching a crescendo, then, finally, a word exploded from his lips: “Snegurochka.”