The dirty white van jerked away from the parking space, leaving rubber as the driver swung the wheel, smoke spilling out of the wheel arches until the tyres gripped and the vehicle rushed ahead. Milton held onto Ross and Romanova and moved them ahead. The van slithered to a stop; Milton opened the back door and bundled both women inside.
There was a rattle of automatic gunfire and a jagged line of holes appeared in the flank of the van. Milton ducked, drawing his Beretta and swivelling in the direction of the inbound fire. The sun was low and in his eyes, and he couldn’t make out the shooters. He ducked as the automatic rattled again, more rounds slamming into the side of the van, one of them punching through the windshield and spiderwebbing it.
BLUEBIRD had moved away from the car. He aimed at the shooter on the knoll and fired, two contained bursts, and drilled the man in the back before he could fire again. The female agent who had been part of the couple moved down the slope away from BLUEBIRD and, as a cloud covered the sun, Milton was able to draw a bead on her. He fired, two careful shots, aiming into the mass between her head and waist. Both shots found their mark. She dropped onto her back, her hands pressed against her gut.
BLUEBIRD was ten feet away.
He dropped the Beretta to the ground. Milton collected it.
BLUEBIRD’s face was calm as he gave Milton a single nod of his head. Milton raised his pistol, aimed low, and shot him in the leg. He fell to the ground, his hands instinctively clutched around the wound, blood already running between his fingers.
Milton pulled himself into the back of the van. Light spilled into the interior from the bullet holes that jagged up in a long diagonal. He slapped his hand on the side of the van and the vehicle jerked away, the doors still open. Eleven slammed on the brakes and Pope pulled himself inside. Milton closed the door as Pope yelled out that they were ready to go. The engine revved loudly, the rubber squealed against the asphalt, and Milton braced himself against the wheel arch as the van swung left and right, picking up speed. They roared across the parking space and onto the road. Milton looked back through the tinted window at the confusion in their wake, bodies scattered across the ground like ninepins.
Milton turned back to the interior. Anastasiya Romanov was sitting against the wheel arch, her legs bent and her arms around her knees, clutching them tight. Ross was next to her, her eyes wide. Neither of them spoke.
“Where are the change-ups?” Milton asked.
“Two minutes away,” Pope said.
Milton turned back to the window and looked for any sign of pursuit. There was none. The agents had no other support, just as BLUEBIRD had suggested would be the case. The SVR had allowed arrogance to get the better of them. That had been their undoing, together with the closed nature of the operation that had been insisted upon by whomever it was in the Center who wanted Anastasiya Romanova for him or herself. Milton didn’t know anything other than what BLUEBIRD had told him in the lounge at Vladivostok: that Jessie Ross had been turned and that he would be at the RV and would do his best to assist.
Milton had been given only a few hours to put the operation together, and most of his time had been circumscribed because he had been with Ross. Pope had taken the JAL flight to Narita after the assassination of the Ryans, but, instead of continuing to London, he had taken the next flight to Vladivostok where he had collected the arriving Eleven before driving north. The two of them had handled the detail, including sourcing the weapons and arranging for their exfiltration. The biggest risk was that BLUEBIRD’s involvement, although valuable, would lead to him being blown. Someone might have seen him firing on the Russians, but, Milton thought, the scene had been so disorientating that any testimony would be unreliable. The men that BLUEBIRD had killed were shot with 19mm Parabellum ammunition, rather than the Russian 39mm cartridges that the Vikhrs fired, and Milton had collected the Beretta that he had used. And then BLUEBIRD had required that he be shot in order to lend weight to the story that he would tell. Milton didn’t know whether there would be witnesses, and hoped that he had been convincing.
Milton called to Pope over the sound of the engine.
“How many cars do we have?” Milton asked.
“Two.”
“You take Romanova.”
“And Ross?”
“I’ve got her. Take Eleven, too. Romanova’s the prize. I’d rather you had the extra manpower.”
Pope looked at him quizzically, as if wondering whether to object, but he knew Milton well enough to know that he wouldn’t change his mind. “There are extra weapons in both cars. Guns and explosives. We probably won’t need them, but…”
“What’s the route for exfil?”
“Drive to Svetlaya. It’s on the coast—twenty hours if you don’t stop. There’ll be a trawler waiting there. It’ll take us out into the Sea of Japan. HMS Sutherland will pick us up and we’ll be transferred from there.”
“I’ll go first,” Milton said. “Follow a mile behind. If they stop me, you might be able to turn around.”
Pope put out his hand. “Good luck, Milton. See you in Svetlaya.”
“Good luck,” Milton said, clasping Pope’s hand.
73
Ross was jostled and buffeted as the van raced away from the station. She was sitting next to Romanova. The Russian was terrified, her knees pressed up to her chest and anchored there behind locked arms. Romanova had the wheel arch on one side and Ross on the other, bumping left and right as they progressed. Ross was frightened, too, but there was more to it than that. She had seen everything: Stepanov ordering them to be still, the man behind him—she didn’t know him, but knew it had to be BLUEBIRD—opening fire, the other agent they had left behind at Moscow Station appearing from the back of the van with an automatic rifle. Ross was frightened, but she was also angry and embarrassed.
The van swerved sharply to the left and then skidded to a stop. Smith opened the doors and hopped down. They were in a parking lot near the river terminal. There were half a dozen vehicles scattered around the lot. The others disembarked the van and the driver led the way to two scruffy rentals parked next to each other. Ross looked left and right and saw no cameras or any other security; an elderly man made his way up the steps to the terminal, but he was staring at his phone and didn’t look as if he had noticed them.
Romanova was taken to a BMW.
Smith took Ross by the wrist and led her to a Volvo.
“How lovely,” she said. “A nice drive together, just the two of us.”
“It’ll be much more pleasant if you spare me the attitude,” Smith said. “You’ll be back home in a day or two to see your son and your parents.”
“You think? We’ll never get out of here.”
Smith opened the door. “Get in.”
He held the door open for her and then went around to the driver’s side. She lowered herself into the seat and stared out of the windscreen into the bright blue sky, a wide canvas over the river and the town beyond. She put her finger to her lips and chewed on a nail. Her trousers were tight against her thighs and she could feel the lipstick in her pocket. Smith thought he had power over her. He thought that he had taken away her ability to choose. He hadn’t. She still had the elektricheskiy pistolet. She could decide what happened next.
Smith started the engine and pulled out. “You might want to get some sleep,” he said. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”